The Gift No One is Thankful For: Traffic

BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- Millions of drivers across the country will hit the road for Thanksgiving celebrations this week and in Maryland, traffic experts are predicting hours of heavy traffic.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the busiest traveling day of the year, but the data shows, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, is becoming just as bad.

Nearly 50 million people nationwide will hit the road this week and trillions of data points from those road trips will get analyzed by Michael Pack at the University of Maryland.

"Our tools allow you to go in and click a couple of buttons, and in five minutes I can tell you where the worst congested locations in Maryland are," said Pack, the Catt lab director.

His models show by Wednesday late afternoon I-95 northbound to Maryland 24 and I-95 northbound, south of 695, might look more like parking lots.

Plenty of brake lights are expected on the Baltimore beltway both Tuesday and Wednesday when holiday travelers come bumper to bumper with weekday commuters.

"You can see the beltway here, significantly more congested than your normal beltway travel would be on an average Wednesday," said Pack.

Pack's data shows, last Thanksgiving week, Marylanders wasted 2.1 million hours sitting in traffic.

With millions already behind the wheel there are plenty of holiday headaches ahead. Of course much of that traffic is caused by accidents.
Models show that Tuesday alone, Baltimore area drivers are 47 percent more likely to be involved in a crash.

Typically, the safest and lightest traffic days are Thanksgiving Thursday and Black Friday.

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