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UPS Is the Derek Zoolander of Delivery: They Can't Turn Left

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Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.


What we're about to tell you isn't new. In fact the policy was put in place ten years ago. But we all need a little efficiency reminder heading into the weekend: UPS is not an ambi-turner. It can't turn left. Or rather it won't. The idea is that turning left is the worst because you're usually moving against traffic and by not turning left you save gas and time. The engineers at the service map out routes that involve a "a series of right-hand loops," thereby saving close to 10 million gallons of gas and taking the equivalent of 5,300 cars of the road a year (according to UPS estimates when combined with other efficiency policies).

Mythbusters tested the policy in 2010 by delivering packages along one of their routes and found that it was more fuel efficient but took about nine minutes longer. As Priceonomics points out, however, "Mythbusters likely failed to save time on the route by following the rule even more stringently than UPS." UPS will take left turns about 10 percent of the time, like when in residential neighborhoods.


· Why UPS Trucks Don't Turn Left [Priceonomics]
· With Grumpy Cat, the Buzzfeed-ification of Vogue Is Complete [Racked]