RESTON, VA—Documenting how spiraling loop-de-loops through traffic help workers speed past rush-hour bottlenecks, a study published Thursday in the Journal Of Transportation Engineering found that rocket-powered roller skates were still the fastest way to commute to eccentric inventor jobs. “Even in areas with access to high-speed commuter rail, a pair of jet-propelled skates that zigzags unpredictably through city streets and leaves behind a blinding exhaust of vapor clouds remains the fastest way for misfit scientists to get to work,” said Professor Lawrence Wilson, the study’s lead author, noting that the rocket-powered skates clocked times that were twice as fast as voice-activated propeller hats and nearly five times as speedy as makeshift bird wings. “Though the roller skates will often malfunction, causing the wacky inventors to plow through their laboratory walls and leave a human-shaped holes behind them, the reduced transit times are undeniable. The transportation method raises clear safety issues, but our data show these can be mitigated by wearing steampunk goggles and a flame-retardant jumpsuit, as well as by executing zany maneuvers to avoid collision with a semi truck by ducking down to pass beneath its trailer in the nick of time.” Wilson added that the second-fasted way to commute to a job as an eccentric inventor remained traveling in the sidecar of a motorcycle operated by a hunchbacked laboratory assistant.