When is rush hour?

Yesterday, I was sitting in traffic, taking about an hour to go 24 miles or so, at about 2:30 p.m. It was mid-afternoon and it was already like somebody put up a brick wall in the middle of the road.
The traffic reports I listen to routinely refer to 2 or 2:30 as "the start of the afternoon rush hour."
I've always thought rush hour was 4, or maybe 3, to 7 or so in the evening, now it starts at 2 or 2:30?
I work nights so I'm not up early enough for the morning rush hour, but if somebody is getting out of work at 2 or 2:30, what time are they arriving at work?
I've always thought that a typical day short was 9 to 5, 8 to 4 or maybe 7 to 3. Are more people working 6 ro 2 or maybe even 5 to 1? Are more people just knocking off work early or are more people working nights and going into work at about 2:30 or 3?

 

Where I live, all the time.

 

@JackReacher - I think there's a 10 minute window from 2:35 a.m.-2:45 a.m. that's not really rush hour.

 

I think the dots -- VDOT, DDOT, and MDOT -- have amended that. It's now a 5-minute window. Public meetings were scheduled, but no one could make it on time.

 

DC just sucks.

What's worse is the weekends can be worse than the workweek because of all of the holiday travelers to the OBX, FL, VA Beach, and all points south.

When people in Richmond complain about traffic, which is about a 15-minute widow, I just shake my head.

 

You'll appreciate this...

Back at the time when the Hunts were trying to corner the silver market, and it was volatile as hell, a trader I know abandoned his car in traffic and took the subway to work.

 

Just be glad you're not in Austin, where a million people use a road network built for 100,000 forty years ago.

 

People in RI bitch about traffic which is hilarious because rush-hour traffic costs you maybe 15 minutes on a bad day. Once in a while there's a bad accident that can cost you 30 minutes, but it's never so bad people should complain. Most people in RI have never left the state, so they have no idea how bad traffic can get.

 

Is this your license plate?

 

Why is it called rush hour if no one is going anywhere?

 

Same reason thin people are called skinny even though fat people have more skin.