Thanksgiving Traffic Census Bureau Deploys 400 Counters to I-95, Counts 0 Moving Vehicles

The Thanksgiving Traffic Census Bureau released its preliminary holiday count Wednesday, reporting that its 400 field counters stationed along Interstate 95 observed a total of zero moving vehicles during the peak 6 p.m. hour — “a statistical achievement,” the bureau noted, “and a transportation catastrophe.”

“Our counters are trained to click once per passing vehicle,” explained Bureau Director Samuel Okafor, 51, displaying a clicker that read 000000. “At 6 p.m., on the busiest travel day of the year, the clickers clicked nothing. The silence was, frankly, majestic. Then we remembered what it meant.”

The bureau, established to produce the nation’s only official count of Thanksgiving travelers, deploys volunteers to overpasses each year with clickers, lawn chairs, and thermoses. This year’s count covered 200 miles of I-95, where counters documented 14,000 stationary vehicles, 3,200 “vehicles that moved slightly and then stopped, which was worse,” and one motorcycle that weaved through the entire jam “like a rumor,” according to the official report.

“We interviewed drivers,” Okafor said. “The average respondent had been stationary for 2 hours and 40 minutes, had consumed 1.8 snacks, and had heard ‘are we there yet’ an average of 23 times. One family had started a card game. Another had ordered pizza to their car — delivery to mile marker 67, which the driver completed on foot. We counted the delivery driver as a pedestrian, which felt right.”

The bureau’s final report, due in December, will include its traditional rankings: Slowest Mile (this year: mile 112, where the average speed was 0.0 mph for six consecutive hours), Most Optimistic GPS (“recalculating” was heard 4 million times), and the coveted Golden Cone Award for the traffic barrel “that held its position with the greatest dignity.”

Transportation officials urged travelers not to be discouraged. “The census proves Americans are committed to Thanksgiving,” said department spokesperson Tom Rivas, 47. “Fourteen thousand cars, zero movement, and every single one of them stayed. That’s not gridlock. That’s devotion.”

Next year’s census will add a new category: “vehicles whose occupants have achieved inner peace,” which Okafor described as “rare, but we saw two — a minivan at mile 89 where everyone was asleep, and a convertible whose driver was just… smiling. We didn’t click them. Some things you don’t count. You just witness.”