I lived north of the 5-805 (I think those are the numbers, it’s been ten years) merge in San Diego, and worked south of it. Nasty bit of traffic everyday coming home. We used this system (zipper system) and it worked fine.
In Oklahoma, the law provides a ‘remedy’ to these kind of drivers. I always see a particular sign at construction areas just prior to where lanes merge to one, and it specifically states “STATE LAW - Merge NOW” and has a large arrow pointing the way. Law says sign must be between a mile and 1500-feet before the merge place, and passing any cars beyond that sign is a misdemeanor. I have seen a few vehicles over the years pulled-over for driving past the slowed cars lined up/stopped for whatever reason. Made me smile knowing they were going to donate some dollars to the State for their assholery 
An excerpt from OS47-11-1302-D if I am reading it right (??) link is to an ‘rtf’ Word doc - says:
*D. The “Merge Now” traffic-control device that is used to warn and guide the public using the highway to merge, shall be located no greater than one (1) mile nor less than one thousand five hundred (1,500) feet in advance of the highway construction or maintenance area. Whenever any traffic-control device requires traffic to merge due to the closure of a section or lane of highway, the merge shall be completed:
- As soon as practicable after passing the traffic-control device; and* *
- Without passing any other traffic proceeding in the same direction.
- G. Any person who violates any provision of this article shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be subject to a fine of not less than One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) nor more than One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) or imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed thirty (30) days, or both such fine and imprisonment, and shall be liable for any damage to property, or injury to or death to persons caused by the violations.
No idea if other State’s have similar merging laws, but the number of folks that try to zip by is not all that big (usually), ime.
I know this is a Pit thread and not a place for education, but I strongly suggest to everyone who hasn’t, pick up the excellent (and entertaining) book by Tom Vanderbilt, “Traffic.”
In it, he clearly demonstrates that the zipper merge is not just the proper way to conduct merges, it’s the BEST way to conduct merges.
Period. Full stop. (Or, technically, go!)
Yes, it riles our traditional sense of “fairness” about waiting in line. But if we all did the alternating merge, there WOULDN’T BE a line.
Best of all, adopting the merge tactic is simple: YOU change your ways, today-- just drive in the open lane until the last moment, then merge in.
Will ignorant drivers more consumed with fairness versus proper merging be upset with you? Sure. But so what? You did it the right way, you kept both lanes of traffic moving until the last possible moment, and you both get to your destination a little bit faster.
As an adopter, all you have to do is stiffen your ego a little bit, and accept the occasional horn-laying and finger-flipping. It’s a small price to pay for doing the right thing.
No, the only assholes here are the ones who think they’re doing everyone a favor by merging earlier than they should, thus blocking two lanes of traffic rather than one.
Zipper merging is always the best way.
Making long “queues” and then getting annoyed with people who make legal use of the road and apply the most efficient merge method is moronic. The OP is completely off-base.
The people to really be angry at are those who try to prevent zipper merging by blocking the open lane. THEY are the real scums of the earth.
Edit: last point. Legal driving and merging on roadways is almost never about queuing. People think it is, but it’s not.
davekhps beat me to it, but I’ll second reading Tom Vanderbilt’s book. He makes a really strong argument as to why you should become a “late merger” in these zipper-merge situations.
In fact, in wanting to provide a link to Amazon, I noticed that most of his discussion occurs in the beginning of the book and is available as the “preview” of the book (fast forward to page 3 of the book).
But the shortest line at the supermarket will have the slow cashier, the mom wrangling too many kids, the person getting cigarettes, the item needing a price check, the person without enough money who has to put stuff back, the person trying to use food stamps for stuff you can’t use food stamps for and the person writing a check that takes 5 minutes to do so. The shortest line is not always the quickest.
As for who the biggest asshole is, it’s not the person who lets a car in, it’s the assholes behind the car let in who think they can take advantage and cut in too. I’ve tried letting one car in with the mindset that if everyone lets one car in things will move faster only to have a few more cars ride the bumper of the one I let in.
Then there are the idiots that you try to let in while things are still moving and they sit there like a lump thinking it’s some sort of trick or they want to keep creeping forward in the closed lane to get a better spot or something and you trying to let them in starts to slow things down so you say “hell with it” and speed up. That is when the idiot decides to take you up on the offer.
Zipper merging -> good.
Guy last night who drove on the shoulder, nearly causing an accident with another car exiting the interstate so he could merge an extra 200 feet ahead -> not good.
Wow, this is incredibly stupid. It’s essentially saying, “Here is an unimpeded, perfectly useable lane that you are not allowed to drive in.” Why not just block the lane at this other, arbitrary point? Oh, right, because then you’d have to set up the MERGE NOW signs that much further back. How ridiculous. There’s no benefit here except making some extra cash for the state at the expense of common sense.
To be fair, I believe the last time we had the full-fledged early merging imbroglio here on the Dope (which seems to occur at least once a year), the most complete study we could find basically said that early merging works better for conditions in which the traffic is moving along at a steady pace, while late merging works better for crawling situations.
Googling around, this may have been the report"
In my opinion, during congested periods, the late merge is the fairer and more logical solution. By utilizing both lanes and zipper merging at the end, you prevent the ability of cars to supposedly “jump” the queue bu utilizing a perfectly legal lane, you eliminate dangerous behavior such as cars policing lanes to prevent these perceived queue-jumpers, you eliminate the stress and anger displayed by both sides of the argument here. I see no downside to late merging in traffic situations as described in the OP.
Just look at how much stress could be saved with a late merge in congested situations. Right now, we have the following folks angry at the following folks:
- Backed-up lane drivers angry at merge-lane drivers for perceived slight of jumping the queue
- Backed-up lane drivers angry at other backed-up lane drivers who yield to merge-lane drivers at the merge point
- Merge-lane drivers angry at backed-up lane drivers who try to police the merge lane or refuse to yield at merge point
- Merge-lane drivers angry at perceived idiocy of backed-up lane drivers who don’t use a perfectly good open lane
That’s a lot of stress and anger going on. I’m not saying the late merge is a complete panacea, but it sure cuts down on a lot of the stress and confusion.
Zipper merge where the signage tells you to merge. The previous signs are so drivers have advance warning. It’s not a race, it’s not a video game, and there’s no prize for getting there first.
Americans are generally completely ignorant of the entire zipper merge concept, hell instead of zipper merge signs you see “Weaving Traffic Ahead” signs around here.
to be fair construction companies could help, instead of closing the right lane or left lane they could force both lanes to merge to center at the merge point then move them to the non closed lanes, this would eliminate the whole correct lane and douche-nozzle lane nonsense that people think is going on.
I’ve got no problem zippering in traffic, but I don’t think it should be done at the “merge point” aka the very last second. There are signs warning of a lane closure, that essentially says keep moving and merge when you get the chance to do so safely… keep moving. No one should have to slam their brakes causing a chain reaction of a backup.
I admit if the roadway were extremely crowded to begin with, any lane closure is going to suck.
You know how sometimes the line/queue for a rollercoaster at an amusement park is so long that it spills out into the general park area? Generally people still line up… They don’t normally form a huge mob around the entrance to the ride trying to force themselves ahead before someone else.
If the backup spills beyond the lane closure, people should form a line/queue instead of making a log jam.
I suspect I might as well argue with a brick wall on this. Seems there’s two schools of thought on the issue. and your school just won’t admit when it’s wrong! 
I swear to god, I wish they would make zipper merging a required part of the driver’s license test.
I have to deal with this every morning on my way to work - my on-ramp (from a surface street) merges with another on-ramp (from I-74) before merging with I-75.
Problem is, it’s short series of ramps with virtually no acceleration room. The people from I-74 are coming off a tight, 180-degree, 25mph turn just before the first merge, and they’re already flooring it to get on I-75, and usually not thinking at all about the traffic merging from the right, which has just come off a surface-style 90-degree turn at less that 15mph.
Inevitably, some fucknut ahead of me on my ramp will notice the cars from I-74 zooming in behind their left shoulder all hell-bent for leather, and will inevitably crap their wee little panties, slamming on the breaks and sitting there impotently at the merge with their left turn signal blinking pathetically.
Once they’re stopped, they realize just how fucked they are, because now they’re stuck trying merge while going from zero to sixty in about a hundred feet. Meanwhile, cars (including mine) are stuck behind them for minutes at a time, waiting for Scaredy McPussypants to find a sufficiently miraculous break in traffic, all the while contemplating their turn to face the same dilemma thanks to the first chickenshit deficit of intestinal fortitude.
The only way to get on that ramp during the morning commute is to steel oneself, floor it, and MAKE YOUR OWN FUCKING HOLE. Anybody who I piss off in the process probably wasn’t maintaining a proper following distance in the first place.
That analogy doesn’t work for me. There’s still only one established line there, not two (or more) lines merging into one.
Yes, as I said above, if the traffic is moving freely, merge normally (as the study states above). If traffic is backed up, merge late.
It doesn’t really matter to me where exactly you merge, so long as everybody merges in the same spot in a backed-up traffic situation and follows the typical left-right-left-right zipper merge. It’s just the merge point is the most obvious spot and there’s no chance for anyone to queue jump even if they wanted to because there’s no place to go.
The “log jam” here is people who insist on packing all the cars into one lane, when there are still two lanes available for use.
You know I can understand you side a little actually. I just did a google search, and I’m wondering if the difference is that most of the time I see this I am in a rural area, where if people would merge ahead of time there is plenty of capacity for people to get through without a backup. when people late merge it starts a backup…whereas in a big city (where I don’t often drive) with crowded roads I could see there being so many cars that the backup could extend beyond the warning signs (in that situation, I could see where using both lanes to queue would make sense) and everyone merges at the merge point…
This site talks about it a little. Its actually a pretty interesting looking system. An early merge system (with a merge zone instead of a point) for lighter traffic that can change into a late merge (or zipper merge, if you prefer) during heavy traffic.
I usually will see what is occuring ahead of me and go with the flow… If people are forming a single line in the open lane, I join in, but if both lanes are backed up, I zipper.
Its like in my amusement park analogy, if you saw there was one line, you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) expect to just start a second line with you as the leader. but if there were already two lines, then, I agree, they should zipper up front.
No, its the people that don’t plan ahead and try to merge from a standstill… haha just kidding. see my post above.
My revised position is that people should merge ahead of time if possible and not stop, but keep moving. Unless there is a zipper merge sign, I take the lane closed ahead sign to mean, move over before the end of this lane as soon as possible. Ideally, they would have a system like I linked above that would use a merge zone (and one-lane queue) until the capacity of the one lane queue was was overwhelmed, then changes to a merge point/ zipper.
But if you see a one-lane queue, its kind of a jerky thing to bypass all the people that merged ahead of time as the signs indicated.
There’s a three lane road on my route home where the left two lanes exit to the left, the right lane continues (mostly) straight. Where the split happens, there are bright, striped painted lines on the road. The right lane often gets backed up, and there is one reason for it: assholes waiting until the last possible second and more to merge. This lane continues unobstructed past this point - there are no lights, stop signs or any other reasons for anyone to slow down whatsoever. Yet, it is always backed up more than the damn exit lanes. There is plenty of warning and room to merge into the right lane if you are not exiting - there is a long, straight section of road perfect for merging. Yet every day there are assholes waiting until just before the split to veer over into the right, causing those in the right lane to hit the brakes, and voila - traffic. And of course once there is traffic, more people decide to wait until the last second because they don’t want to wait in the line. Many also often drive right over the painted lines rather than merging legally (these are the real fuckwads). If people just merged over not at the last second, that lane could cruise at speed with no difficulties, but no… :mad:
I agree with you there. If the roadway past the merge is only capable of handling x cars a minute, but y cars a minute need to get through there, zippering is not going to help and thinking that wedging yourself in at the last second is somehow improving traffic flow is not logical. In that case, zippering will decrease the physical length of the backup which may have advantages, but ultimately you will still only get x cars a minute through there.