One of the UK’s leading motoring organisations has said that the rush hour period has fully-returned following analysis of traffic levels during 2020.

The RAC has analysed thousands of trips taken by its customers and found that the school drop-off between 8am and 9am has led to the biggest spike in traffic since lockdown ended.

Looking at traffic levels between Monday 7th September and Wednesday 16th September, the RAC found that there was the same number of cars on the roads as on a similar day in January.

The influence of school traffic is demonstrated by the 55 per cent jump in car journeys from the last week in August, when the majority of schools were still on holiday.

RAC Insurance spokesman Rod Dennis said: “What's abundantly apparent is how dependent parents are on the car for getting children to their places of study or play during the week – and with fewer people prepared to take public transport at the moment, the reliance on the car as the transport mode of choice has increased.

“Workers that used to drop children off and then carry on to offices or other workplaces are clearly still using their cars for these trips, but just returning home again instead.

“It may also be the case that many are opting for the car so they can be back at their desks to start work as promptly as possible.”

An unwillingness to return to public transport and staggered drop-off times have been identified as the key reasons for the return to rush hour.

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