Rush Hour

Six lanes of streaking lights look like a swarm of giant glowing bees making their way home after a hard day collecting pollen in the fields. This however is a current of cars, channeling the far more complex course of human activity between an innumerable amount of independent motives that somehow come together to makeup the society of man, efficient or not. A rush hour or peak hour is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening, the times during when the most people commute. The term is very broad but often refers to specifically private automobile transportation traffic, even when there is a large volume of cars on a road but not a large number of people, or if the volume is normal but there is some disruption of speed. The name is sometimes a misnomer, as the peak period often lasts more than one hour and the "rush" refers to volume of traffic, not rate of flow. Typically, rush hour is 6–10 am (06:00–10:00) and 4–7 pm (16:00–19:00). Some places may experience another, less frantic, lunchtime rush hour from noon till 2 pm (14:00). In some states, freeways have designated lanes that become HOV (High-Occupancy Vehicle aka car-pooling) only during rush hours, while open to all vehicles at other times.