Congestion reports cause pile-up of bad newspaper headlines

Just days after gloomily reporting that congestion levels on the UK’s trunk roads have fallen in the past year, the papers expressed predictable outrage at news that our cities are the most congested in Europe, allegedly.

The perennially controversial subject of road traffic congestion made several significant appearances in the media in early June. On June 3, for example, The Daily Telegraph headlined a story based on Highways Agency and Office for National Statistics data: “Road congestion falls as motorists leave cars at home amid soaring fuel prices”.

“The latest statistics released by the HA showed that 85.3% of car journeys on major trunk roads were completed ‘on time’ in...

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