Rat running or cut-through driving refers to the use of secondary roads or residential side streets instead of the intended main roads in urban or suburban areas. People do it to avoid heavy traffic, lengthy traffic signals or other obstacles, even where there are traffic calming measures to discourage them, or laws against taking certain routes. Rat runs are frequently taken by motorists familiar with the local geography. They will often take such short cuts to avoid busy main roads and intersections. The term may have arisen from associations with the rat race or from similarities between the driving routes used and those taken by rats running through a maze.
Rat running is controversial. It is sometimes opposed by homeowners on the affected streets, as some people regard it as a disturbance of their peace. Sometimes it affects house prices. Authorities often try to prevent it, but enforcement is difficult. Rat running is sometimes fought by installing traffic calming devices, such as all-way stops, speed humps, traffic circles, and rumble strips, by making some streets one-way, or by blocking off certain intersections. Some places, including Montgomery County, Maryland, Maryland Heights, Missouri, and parts of Minneapolis, have banned turning on certain streets during rush hours to prevent rat running.[1]
Some motorists keep their rat runs secret in order to prevent others from clogging up the roads they routinely use.[1]
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Motorists familiar with an area sometimes use side streets or other smaller roads that run in the same direction as the main road on a parallel route. They are generally local people who know these streets and the pros and cons of using them as alternatives to the main road.
In some places, motorists avoid stopping at a red light by turning on to a side street or into a parking lot to bypass it.
In some countries, red lights can be avoided by turning right on red (or left in drive-on-the-left countries), making a U-turn, and then turning right or left again back on to the street on which the motorist was traveling. This may require less time than waiting for the light to turn green.
Some motorists exit and then re-enter a freeway or motorway at the same junction, or use lanes designated for exiting and merging, in order to pass stationary traffic.
Some large streets are separted from parallel small residential streets only by a small strip where homeowners park their vehicles. These streets can be used to bypass traffic jams.
When a major event draws a large volume of traffic, local police sometimes monitor or block secondary roads to prevent motorists from the event crowd from using such streets to avoid the traffic.[2]
Since the 2000s, a number of U.S. states, including Georgia and Maryland,[1] some smaller U.S. jurisdictions, and some parts of the United Kingdom have passed or tried to pass laws restricting rat-running in certain communities to maintain peace and privacy for residents.[3][4] Even where signs clearly mark places where rat-running is prohibited, however, enforcement is difficult and prosecutions are rare.
Many communities combat rat running by installing traffic calming features such as chicanes, speed tables, speed cushions, kerb extensions, cobbled sections, and various other measures. Other communities install physical barriers that completely block through-traffic along routes prone to rat running. One of the most extensive uses of this strategy is found in Berkeley, California, where dozens of concrete barriers throughout the city block shortcuts, while still allowing cycling.[5] In Northern Virginia, shortcuts are discouraged by the construction of dead end streets, communities with no outlet, and winding roads designed to confuse, making navigation through the neighborhoods more difficult and time-consuming.[1]