Why do UPS drivers never turn left?
Why the anti-left sentiment?
Question: why are right turns favored by UPS drivers?
Answer: because avoiding left turns saves UPS about $400 million annually in fuel charges, wages and vehicle running costs.
Welcome to Costs Matter, a series that asks different questions all of which have the same answer: to better manage costs. The costs are frequently economic though not always. The series focuses narrowly on the impact of costs. It does not claim these costs are the sole cause. To read more in the series, visit https://medium.com/galileo-onwards/costs/home.
UPS started favoring right turns way back in the 70s and in 2008, launched a proprietary, right turn favoring routing software called Orion which analyzes 250 million address points a day and performs 30,000 route optimizations per minute. “It took 10 years to get it right. The hardest part was making it think more like a driver and less like a computer,” says Jack Levis, Senior Director of Process Management at UPS.
Studies by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Association have shown that turning left, as opposed to turning right, is far more prone to causing accidents (as left-turning traffic typically has to turn against a flow of oncoming vehicles) and not as fuel efficient given your vehicle is idling longer. UPS drivers aren’t outright banned from turning left and do make the rare left turns when absolutely necessary.
Read more at https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/16/world/ups-trucks-no-left-turns/index.html.
