rush hour/the rush hour/rush hours

[GeneD]

1. He likes to avoid the rush hour.
2. He likes to avoid rush hours.
3. He likes to avoid rush hour.

Which of them is (are) the most appropriate choice(-s)?

 

[GoesStation]

It would be more typical in American English to say He likes to avoid rush hour traffic.

 

[emsr2d2]

They're fine in BrE without using "traffic". I would say that 1 and 3 are the most commonly used.

 

[GeneD]

If there’s an accident during _ rush hour, it can be chaos on the roads. Taken from http://www.englishcurrent.com/exercises/study-articles-exercises-online/

I typed "the" before "rush hour" and it was marked as wrong when I clicked the "Check" button. I thought, after Piscean's reply in post 2, that in the sentence above there shouldn't be only one correct answer. Is there a pattern for an article+"rush hour"?

 

[GoesStation]

We generally only use an article with the term when it's preceded by an adjective, as in the morning rush hour.