Grrr! Where Sacramento drivers rank on Instagram #TrafficJam rants

Analyzing 126,000 Instagram posts venting about traffic, the Auto Insurance Center has ranked Los Angeles and San Francisco in the top 10 most gridlocked cities in the nation.

The study published in May analyzed posts from 2011 to 2017 that used the hashtags #Traffic, #TrafficSucks and #TrafficJam.

The Los Angeles/Santa Monica area ranked first with 993 posts per 100,000 residents, and Miami second with 928. Atlanta was a distant third with 584; San Francisco was fourth with 484, and New York City was fifth with 249. Seattle, Boston, Washington, D.C., Orlando and Las Vegas rounded out the top 10.

Sacramento ranked 107th overall in posts per capita, with 47 posts per 100,000 residents (243 posts overall), according to Jusin Loera, senior insurance market analyst with the Auto Insurance Center.

As for entire states, Washington, D.C. (the study ranked it as a state) saw the most Instagram complaints (221 posts per 100,000 residents), followed by New York (138), California (95), Nevada (85) and Wyoming (71).

Los Angeles traffic is the worst in the nation, Instagram users seem to agree, the insurance center said.

The study also looked at where the posts were clustered.

Time stamps on the posts indicated that the heaviest day for complaints was Friday, usually late afternoon, when tensions boil over at the end of the work week and everyone just wants to get home. Sunday had the fewest. The worst months nationally were February and October, and April was the lightest.

The average American commuter spends 50 hours per year stuck in traffic, according to a report by the Inrix data company. But major metro areas are much more miserable. Los Angeles commuters endure an average of 81 hours per year in traffic jams, with D.C., San Francisco, Houston and New York in the 70s.

This story was originally published June 1, 2017 at 6:43 AM.