On the morning rush hour drive into the city, you’ll get an earful from angry motorists fighting Houston traffic.

“It sucks,” one woman quipped.

“I can’t stand it,” another complained.

Yet another driver told us: “It’s horrible, I wish they would do something about it.”

But hold on and rewind time.

Something was done, wasn’t it?

“Traffic will move a lot faster.”

“Move the traffic along”

“Move the traffic on the freeways.”

Those comments came from Houston Mayor Bill White while he was launching the City’s Safe Clear wrecker program in 2005.

Top ranking officials in the Mayor’s Office of Mobility even went a step further:

“You will see a tremendous difference in the flow of traffic,” said Joe Breshears, Director of the Office of Mobility in December, 2004.

And David Saperstein, the program’s chairman pledged “a huge difference for people getting to work on time” in March, 2004. Six months later, Saperstein added that Houstonians would see “a dramatic uptick in the reduction of drive times.”

So, the 11 News Defenders wanted to know, has the city lived up to its promise?

We analyzed peak drive times for every major freeway into downtown: Gulf, North, Northwest, East, Eastex, South and Southwest. The Katy Freeway was not included due to construction.

The analysis covered the morning peak hours of 6:30a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and the afternoon peak hours between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. 11 News compared average drive times along those segments in 2003 to 2006, which is two years before Safe Clear, and two years after the program was launched.

The bottom line -- 86 percent of those routes saw not a reduction but an increase in average drive times.

Here’s a closer look.

The morning drive in on the Eastex Freeway, from Townsen Road into downtown, took an average of 22.15 minutes in 2003. But after Safe Clear in 2006, the same commute averaged 23.3 minutes – just over one minute longer.

Morning commuters on the Gulf Freeway saw a bigger increase. From NASA Road One, the average drive into downtown took 29.75 minutes in 2003. After Safe Clear in 2006, that jumped to 31.99 minutes, an increase of more than two minutes.

The third biggest increase came on the afternoon drive on the Southwest Freeway. From downtown out to Wilcrest, the average commute took 22.99 minutes in 2003. But that jumped to 26.21 minutes in 2006—more a three minute boost.

The average drive time grew even longer on the North Freeway. In 2003,  the average afternoon commute from downtown out to Hardy Toll Road was 27.95 minutes. But in 2006, the same drive took an average 31.62 minutes, a increase of more than three and a half minutes.

And the biggest average drive time increase from before Safe Clear to after was just over four minutes. While that may not sound like a lot, over a 52-week calendar year, it’s more than 17 extra hours stuck in traffic.

And where did we find that? The morning drive on the Northwest Freeway, from Barker Cypress Road to the 610 Loop.

It’s the route Mike Green takes in to work. Green lives just outside of Tomball, and his morning trip must begin before dawn to get into his downtown office on time.

“It’s going take me about an hour and a half,” Green said.

The congestion-weary commuter told 11 News : “Safe Clear was a nice attempt to try and help, but our commute times have gotten longer and longer every year.

The Defenders provided its findings to Frank Michel, Communication Director for the Office of the Mayor, one week prior to an interview with Bill White.

But White told 11 News: “I haven’t seen your analysis.”

Still, the mayor claimed mobility is improving, saying Safe Clear has resulted in a 20 percent reduction in accidents. He added that you have to factor in the increase in the number of vehicles on the road.

“Everybody knows we’re the fastest growing economy in the nation,” White said.

White also said the Safe Clear program has the support of traffic engineers, like Tim Lomax, with the Texas Transportation Institute.

“Travel times are longer, no doubt, but they are not as long as they would be otherwise,” Lomax said.

After years of studying traffic patterns in Houston and across the nation for years, Lomax claimed the increased volume on the road, should be driving up drive times even more...

“Whatever the number is now, it would have been worse if it hadn’t been for Safe Clear,” Lomax said.

But not everyone is convinced.

“I spend a lot of time on the freeways,” said City Council member Addie Wiseman.

“It’s costing us money and it isn’t working,” Wiseman said, adding that the price tag is coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket.

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“I’m not comfortable spending three million dollars a year that we could be spending on something else,” Wiseman said.

So what’s your take?

Better, or worse, or just not as bad?

You’ll probably have plenty of time to think about it, on the morning drive in.