How far can you reasonably commute by car?

I used to do a 150 mile round trip to work which took 2.5 hours each way. It actually didn't seem too bad at the time!

I now do a round trip of 32.
 
I commute (by bus, train and foot) and it takes me about 2h45 for the round trip - a fairly big change from the 25min round trip (walking) I was doing until 6months ago! If I could drive it would be a 1h30 max round trip.

As I can't drive it's difficult for me to answer the question but in general I wouldn't want to spend more than 3hrs a day commuting unless it was a job I enjoyed and/or paid extremely well. I'm pretty much at my limit now as it means including travel time and lunch break I'm doing a 56hr week as standard.

One advantage of travelling by car is that aside from being stuck in traffic, there is no 'wasted time'. It's door to door so even if you are crawling along in places you are still making quicker time than someone sat on a station platform, and there's rarely much walking at either end. Generally speaking it also means that if you set off 5mins late, you will get to work 5mins late. Compare to public transport where if you miss a bus or train by only a couple of mins, you can end up being 30mins+ late to work.
 
I spent 3 years commuting 65 miles each way from Solihull to Corby. Took about 70 mins each way M42-M6-A14 plus a few little roads each end.

I was luckily travelling against the main flow of traffic both coming and going so had very little in the way of traffic jams (or queues as they are politically correctly called now to make them seem more normal and acceptable covering up years of under-investment in the road system!)

Main points - listen to self improvement tapes or audio books to kill time. Long driving commutes are soooo boring. Drive time used to be good on Radio 2. Sadly Chris Evans now does a very good breakfast show at 17:00 in the afternoon.

Killed a Ford Sierra Sapphire in first three months. Went for a Diesel (for economy) Volvo Estate (for saftey). The cost of commuting 30,000 miles per year is very high. The risk of being in a high speed smash is also something to take into account.

Bottom line - probably not worth the time, expense and hassle. Might do it again if necessary.

PS Also commuted 6 months from Birmingham to Euston by train. Wouldn't do that again!
 
I used to travel about 30 miles each way which took approx 35 minutes as it was mostly motorway and going out of manchester meant that the traffic was moving quite fast :).

Now do about 4 miles into the city centre and it takes about 15 minutes - thank god I know all the back roads :D
 
I have done 150 mile round trip daily comoute for 3 months when working on the west side of Glasgow. Drove from Fife to there. Used to leave at 5:45am t get there for 7am start. Finished at 3pm and usually got home around 4:50pm. But I did it with another guy so only drove it every second day.

But the toll on the cars is horrific. And there is deinfately an increased risk of crashing. I narrowly missed a motorway pileup and when the other guy was driving, somebody smashed into the back of us at a roundabout at end of the motorway.

Now I have a 34 mile round trip on an empty road ;)

Long commutes are character building and are good to do at some point, because it makes you realise how lucky you are when you dont have to do it anymore!
 
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I go from Wigan to Leeds - about 60 miles, but in the morning takes 2 huors in *** evenign about 2 hours. as i dont get paid for it and with new tax laws closing the milage for contractors, i got a B&B and stay in leeds for 4 nights, less hassle and less wear and tear on the car.

If i was being paid i think 2 hours is the max i would travel, any more than that and it gets to you after a few weeks.
 
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