That

In general, I hate the expression "the fact that" with something close to passion.

In your example, I'd go with: "He couldn't get over that there was no traffic." Not a stunning sentence, but better than the alternatives (imo).

Unnecessary use of the word "that" can be seen as amateurish and I have recently been working at breaking myself of the habit wherever possible.

Even though I'm a recovering that-oholic, I think "that" gets a bad rap sometimes. After all, it's the only word I know of that can be used six times in a row in a sentence and still make sense: "I think that that that that that that refers to is absolutely necessary for clarity." (a response to a statment like: "The 'that' in the sentence 'He ate the cake that his mother made.' is not necessary.")

(I'm excluding sentences with numbers such as "The number 2,222,222,... can be read aloud as 'two two two two two two two...", where the only limitation is the limit of paper, ink, or electrons, whichever comes first.)

"That" is one of the most overused words in the English language, and it soons starts jumping off the page with overuse. "That is sometimes necessary," but far more often than not, any sentence reads better without its presence.

If it's unnecessary, cut it. Agents, editors, and readers in general will thank you for it.

I think it's more the fact that that and there are used together in the sentence. Sounds kinda bogun... abrupt. The other problem is 'was' ... past tense!
That, there and was are directives. Not that there's anything wrong with them, mind, they're just sonically awful. They too seemingly impinge on allowing the readers mind to enter a sentence alone. But that would also depend on whether they're used in prose or poetry ...well, I suppose!

J

ditto on the previous post... and 'like' is way up there too!

The absence of traffic astonished him.