What Day of the Week Has The Worst Commute?

New Jersey commuters are the third most likely in the nation to have what's known as an extra-long commute (after New York and Maryland), with almost 15 percent of us reporting an average one-way commute of an hour or longer.  I am fortunate to not have this long of a commute - it takes me about 40-45 minutes to get to work in the morning, and about 50 minutes in the evening (my work day has an abnormal start time, which is an advantage saving me about five to ten minutes per morning commute).

As I was driving home earlier this evening - the main drag between my office and my home is a two-lane truck route, so I spend this time exposed to diesel exhaust from heavy-duty trucks, thinking about the science of commuting while listening to Jason Ellis on XM Radio - I wondered, what day of the work week has (on average) the longest commutes, independent of seasonal fluctuations such as summer Shore traffic?

I was surprised to Google search this and come up with absolute bubkus.  Squadoosh.  A veritable bucket of yuck.  As far as I can tell, there's been no reasonable, scientific (or even quasi-scientific) attempt to determine this.

(Though I should mention: if you look at the entire week, the most dangerous day of the week to drive is Saturday, and the most dangerous month of the year to drive happens to be August.  So keeping in mind we should all stay safe this coming Saturday - I'm writing this post in August - this information is woefully unsurprising.  Weekends bring out the idiots, the inexperienced, and the unfamiliar drivers; and summer weekends are the absolute worst, because everyone is traveling someplace else.)

Virtually nobody I'm aware of studies traffic from a behavioral perspective, and this is a damn shame, because driving is such a unique experience and most of us spend too much time in traffic.  There are likely so many optimizations just waiting to be found, if someone were enterprising enough to discover and implement these improvements, they'd probably win a Nobel Prize for Awesomeness.  But since there's been (to my knowledge) no rigorous attempt to determine the day of the workweek with the worst traffic, here are my back-of-the-envelope thoughts.  Herein, I assume that the key drivers of shitty traffic are:

1. Car accidents;
2. The volume of cars on the road, where more cars obviously equals worse traffic;
3. What I'll call the "incidence of idiocy", loosely defined as non-accident-causing behavior that nonetheless turns driving into an incredible shitshow.  Think distracted drivers, upset drivers, farm equipment that can't go more than 20 mph, teenagers texting each other, etc.

To simplify things, I'll assume the incidence of car accidents is roughly equal across the five-day work week but spikes on the weekends.  This may be an oversimplification, but a quick internet search suggests it's reasonable to make.  So in the analysis that follows, I'm mainly thinking of items (2) and (3) from above:

• Monday: Mondays suck, and you could make the argument that people are worse drivers when they're in generally negative moods, leading to a greater "incidence of idiocy".  But when people take days off from work, they often take Mondays to make a three day weekend.  So even if the people on the road are more likely to be idiots, there are fewer people on the road overall.  For this reason, I think Mondays are out.  They can't be the worst day of the week.
• Friday: The same rule applies here as Monday; when people take off, they are disproportionally more likely to take a Friday off.  Friday evenings, especially in the summertime and the holiday shopping season, may be a special exception, but this has little to do with commuters.  Really, it's the presence of non-commuters (who, again, are more likely to be distracted, incompetent, and/or not know where they're going) that makes driving more dangerous.  In sum, I believe that while Fridays are probably more dangerous than Mondays, they are not the most dangerous day of the week.
• Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Mid-week days are when office participation is at its highest.  But many offices, such as the one where I work, have started offering a work at home day in the middle of the week (ours is Wednesday), so I'd wager that Wednesday is probably less likely to have a shitty commute than Tuesday or Thursday.  (But what do I know - my wife is lucky if I shower, let alone drive anywhere, on work at home Wednesdays.)
• So, between Tuesday and Thursday, which do I pick?  Based on my own personal experience, I'd go with Thursday.  By the close of business on Thursday, people have been working for four days straight, and the various office and home stresses of the work week have started to take their toll.  Additionally, the weekend is very much in sight, so the most easily distracted people probably already have one foot into their weekends.  (Typically the brake pedal foot.)  I always pay closer attention while driving on Thursdays - especially in the evening, when many companies have after-work happy hours - and tend to drive more defensively overall.

By the way, today was a rainy Thursday.  Rainy Thursdays are the cream of the crop of shitty commutes, because you can add weather-related herping and derping to the various factors described above.  I get the fundamental idea of driving 5 mph slower when it's raining outside, but based on their driving patterns, you'd think some people are rendered completely blind by a light rain shower.  Our brakes still work in the rain!  They won't lock!  They're called anti-lock brakes for a reason.

Anyway, I'm curious whether people agree or disagree with my logic.  What's the worst day, commute-wise, for you?