The headline might be suprising for everyone who has been stuck in a traffic jam.

But cycling has made me notice just how little of the actual road space cars actually use.

More often than not I cycle home round 6pm to 8pm.

And through Sankey and Penketh, it can be 30 seconds at a time before a car even goes past.

A short bunch usually comes past then there's a big gap.

Presumably this is down to traffic lights.* It just shows how criss-crossing roads badly affect traffic flow.

You just end up with lots of cars doing sprint starts then stopping, and lots of vacant roadspace.

I cycled in at rush hour this morning, with the schools back, and it was still fairly empty.

Cars, and the measures needed to accomodate them, do not make efficient use of roadspace.

Incidentally, I have a new least favourite sound - the rattle of car engines on a hot day. It sounds so wasteful and unnatural.

*When I started cycling to work, when traffic lights on red I used to think the best way to handle them was get to the front, then try and get away as fast as possible.

But of course they soon overtook me, and they were bunched up and very close to me, making it feel unsafe.

This is because most of the traffic lights I go through are for two lanes of traffic, and because the roads often narrow to phyiscally accomodate the lights.

I now find it easiest to go through just as they go back to red and follow the last cars through.

You are not passed by bunched up traffic speeding from the lights, and you get a good run until traffic starts to come from behind you again.