Seven o'clock is the busiest hour of the British morning. The school run has not started but everything that precedes it has — uniforms, breakfast, packed lunches, and the negotiation over who is using the bathroom. Commuter trains are at their first peak, motorway traffic is thickening, and the Today programme is well into its running order.
For people working standard hours, this is the hour that determines whether the rest of the morning is calm or frantic. Leaving at ten past seven rather than half past can change a commute by twenty minutes in any city with a rush hour worth the name.
It is also the most common alarm time in the country by a distance, which makes the countdown to it one of the more heavily used on the site. Whether you are checking the night before or in the ten minutes after a snooze, it shows precisely how much of the morning is left.
Common questions
Why is 7 am the busiest hour of the morning?
It is the window between waking and leaving — breakfast, uniforms and packed lunches all happen before the school and work run begins.
Does the countdown use the 12-hour clock?
Yes, times are shown as am and pm in line with everyday British usage, but the countdown itself is given in hours and minutes.
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