Commuters spend more than two days each year stuck in stand-still traffic on Britain’s roads, according to Kia Motors’ ‘cleaner driving’ report.

Daily jams and queues blight 71% of the UK workforce who make the journey to work by car, with the average commuter spending 47 minutes on their journey, 12 minutes of which is spent either crawling below 5mph or totally stationary.

The worst affected of all are those commuters living in Greater Manchester forced to use the heavily congested A556. The 50,000 drivers who use the four-mile stretch of road each day collectively waste half-a-million hours sitting in queues each year.

Adding to the frustration of waiting in constant tailbacks, Kia Motors found that:

• Two-thirds (66%) of commuters admitting to speeding when the traffic clears to make up time

• 62% of drivers grow angry when they hit queues, with one in three commuters admitting having experienced ‘road rage’ in heavy traffic

• Almost half (49%) say they’ve narrowly avoided a traffic-related accident

• One in five (19%) have suffered a bump or minor accident while driving to work

• 44% are regularly late for work due to traffic

Despite this, commuters are reticent to change their ways. Some 30% of drivers rule out public transport due to inconvenience, while almost three-quarters (72%) said they value the privacy and space that their journey to work affords.

Sue Mulcaster, a Kia Motors spokesman, said: “By investing in green technology such as Intelligent Stop and Go (ISG), where the car’s engine switches off when stationary, the environmental impact of stop-start driving in heavy traffic is reduced, with fuel consumption and emissions significantly.”