While doing laundry, I read on the back of a box of Bounce fabric softener sheets that I was “holding a little box of happy.”

I thought I was holding something that was going to stop fabric cling and make the laundry smell better.

“Happy”?

A favorite metric of auto reviewers is “fun-to-drive.” If that descriptor can be applied to a car or crossover or truck, then it is at some level of acceptable.

If not, then turn the page.

A Google search brings up 18,4-million results for the term.

Admittedly, there are times when it may be fun to drive.

Many people find it exhilarating to be slamming along in a Jeep Wrangler in Poison Spider in Moab. Or driving a Corvette through the twists and turns of Mulholland Highway.

But pretty much, driving is like the fabric softener.

According to the 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard produced by INRIX and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), the average commuter—and let’s be clear here, most of the time you’re driving you are doing so for a purpose that has little to do with “fun”—spends 42 hours per year sitting in rush hour traffic.

Want a reason why Silicon Valley is so keen on autonomous vehicles? How about the findings that the gridlock in San Francisco accounts for 78 hours per annum and it is 67 in San Jose.

“Fun-to-drive.”

Sure.

In the real world, it ought to be “comfortable-to-sit-in.”