4. East/West Germany
When the Berlin Wall went down, Germans from East and West were desperate to reconnect with friends and family from the other side. The April 1990 Easter holiday brought an estimated 18 million vehicles onto a road that normally sees just half a million cars per day. Needless to say, that caused a few maddening delays.
5. Chicago
Bad weather on February 1, 2011 resulted in many road accidents which halted the Chicago traffic to a snowy standstill. The motorists were almost buried in their cars as 20 inches of snow fell that day. It’s never worth leaving home during treacherous conditions like that.
6. Western Japan
Densely populated cities like Tokyo or Osaka always have traffic congestion, even with their heavy reliance on train transit. But even the rural areas can get filled to over-capacity. One of the worst traffic jams on record occurred in August 1990 between between Hyogo and Shiga prefectures. Not only was this the time of year that people visit family for the O-bon festival, there was also a typhoon warning the day before so even more people took to the roads to make up for lost time. The result was 84-miles of highway hell with nobody going anywhere for about 48 hours.
