Z I P P E R
M E R G E
Why is it always boomers that fail to comprehend the zipper merge?
… Is it the lead poisoning??
Who
Boomer humor. Your post. It’s humor for dimwitted old “baby boomers” who don’t understand that it’s better to use both lanes for as long as possible and then zipper merge.
I call it prep and merge…prepare to merge at speed, then merge when it’s needed
Upvoting all of OPs posts because you gotta respect the commitment
Oh they read it, that’s why they’re there. It’s faster.
Zipper merge is best merge you dingus.
The issue is this:
A) Your lane is ending. Drive to the end of the lane and then merge. Simplest reason: why the fuck would they build that much lane if you’re not supposed to drive on it? Alternate reason: you’re just stretching the traffic jam farther back where it could be blocking people from exiting or getting on.
B) Your lane is exit only. Get the fuck out of that lane, you’re blocking people legitimately trying to exit. You’re a cheating cheater and you’re clogging the exit lane.
C) Your lane is not an exit and you want to get into an exit lane. Get into the exit lane as soon as possible. Late merge is just going to clog up a lane and you’re a cheating cheater.
These situations are not the same but people think they are.
Like most things, a zipper merge works only if EVERYONE is abiding by it. Much like they tested and found out that a plane can have all passengers boarded and seated with luggage in about 15 minutes…if everyone followed the rules. But know, every damn over-entitled Karen, Jaxson, MacKhenzie and the rest of their ilk feel the rules don’t apply to them.
In Australia if your front two wheels are ahead of the other person’s front two wheels, and you’re indicating to move into their lane - they have to let you in. It’s the law.
Takes a lot of the rage out.
Oh yes, but there is also the rule that if they are driving a ford ranger sized ute or larger they have right of way to floor it and get infront of you so you have to merge behind.
many states have laws that require you to let people merge. they don’t.
In a civilized country, that might work (Australia though, really?). It would just promote idiots to race ahead of people here in the States. Im kidding btw. Love you Aussies.
Do you mean “they have to let you in”?
Yes, thanks.
Yep. Science says OP is wrong: https://www.acg.aaa.com/connect/blogs/4c/auto/zipper-merge-keeps-traffic-moving
ISTR there being some indication that as speeds increase, merging further away from the “final merge point” can help, but that’s for designing roads with permanent lane reductions, not for temporary lane closures due to construction, accident, etc. But, I also couldn’t find that science when I looked for it.
Zipper merge works best as long as the people involved understand it and actually want to do it.
another failure of human nature. the tragedy of the commons fails us yet again!
Who?
Sorry, wrong thread mate. The owl mating convention is over yonder. Two flaps, hang a left and Bob’s your uncle.
The problem is these people won’t zipper merge most of the time. I always leave 2 car spaces, and the asshats want me to come to a complete stop before they do.
Boomers, they’re called boomers
Learn what zipper merging is you fuckin potato.
Or do you want backups to take up twice as much space as they need to? It’s about efficiency. If everybody zipper merges, you still get your fucking turn.
This! Also, let the motorcycle in front of you if you are at the head of the line at the light! We will be long gone before you pull your thumb out of your ass and take you foot off the brake when the light turns green
Yeah people like this are fucking idiots. Just let the dude over it’s not going to slow you down it’s not going to stop you shit if it cost you 15 seconds oh my god what the fuck ever. People are fucking retarded when they think that they have the right to own a lane.
The thing is that selfish people trying to skip to the front of the line and cut in front of the people in the through-lane right behind another merging vehicle instead of taking their turn alternating with through-lane vehicles absolutely do create congestion which can back up a long way.
Zipper merges only work when people in the merging lane aren’t being selfish assholes and trying to do that.
Right! People get so crazy impatient and entitled when they enter a vehicle.
Having to come to a complete stop to let them in is why the lane gets backed up for a mile plus.
I always leave 2 car spaces (unless a semi needs to merge, then it’s 6) and it’s rare for the person up front to merge in without me fully stopping, flashing my lights, and emphatically waving them in.
The problem is that most people don’t know what zipper merging is, including those who need to take advantage of it.
If everyone zipper merges correctly. More often, half the drivers try to use the lane that’s ending to skip to the front of the line and create a bottleneck that brings traffic to a stop for half a mile…
That is the zipper merge https://www.acg.aaa.com/connect/blogs/4c/auto/zipper-merge-keeps-traffic-moving and both lanes should be full all the way with every other car giving way.
I know what it is, but cars in the merging lane often try to skip the one they’re supposed to give way to and merge right behind the one in front of them.
Have you ever had a zipper jam?
What do you mean
That only works when people behave like civilized human beings who take their turn instead of trying to skip to the front of the line.
That’s the thing innit? The line should be spread across both lanes all the way up to the point where one closes.
The person who gets out into the closing lane to skip ahead probably isn’t thinking about it this much. They’re probably just an entitled asshole. But, in this case, they happen to be doing it right.
Everyone getting into the open lane early effectively closes the other lane early and pushes the congestion further back, disrupting other intersections.
If everyone merges into the through-lane as soon as they can, then there’s no bottleneck. It’s only an issue if there was another intersection recently before the lane closure, but typically these are on highways with few if any intersections.
If you have two lanes of traffic moving at a given speed, and try moving both those lanes through one lane of traffic, mathematically it has to slow down, because you’re trying to fit the same amount of traffic through half as much space.
It’s like when you pour water in a funnel, the bottom is narrower so it drains slower than you can fill it.
Or it’s like doubling the resistance on an electrical circuit. It cuts the current in half.
So, “there are circumstances in which merging in advance is acceptable.” Sure.
I think we’d be hard pressed to invent one where it’s superior without implying a failure in how the lane was closed.
In the US (where I am), zipper merging is mandatory in two states, recommend ten more, and allowed in all of them.
You’re still ignoring my main point which is how many people abuse the merging lane to try to get ahead and skip to the front of the line.
Systems that depend on everyone cooperating fairly and being patient and taking their turns kinda break down when a bunch of selfish people try to take advantage of the good faith and fairplay of others…
Doesn’t make sense
Not beating the potato allegations.
Hee hee
What does that mean
Which part?
The word, idk what it means.
https://www.acg.aaa.com/connect/blogs/4c/auto/zipper-merge-keeps-traffic-moving
Never mind, I see you’re just trolling,
We all need to zipper block this fine fellow and move on to increase lemmy traffic flow
What community on lemmy do you think this is?
Oh, well the teeth are the cars and the zipper is the merge point (lane closure)
Both lanes use all available space and take turns joining into a single lane at the merge point, minimizing congestion
But how does my car fit
I guess it depends on where you are.
Let’s take the scenario where there are no other cars on the road, you’re in the lane that stays open driving next to a car in the closing lane, and you arrive at the merge point. In this case, you should keep going as normal, and the other guy should fall in behind you. (Ideally he slows down to fall out of sync before getting there. Less ideally he speeds up. Least ideally you both speed up and make chaos.)
If both lanes are fully used and there’s a line in both, same situation. First car in the open lane goes, then first car in the closed lane, then second car in the open lane, etc.
Now the controversial case where a bunch of well meaning souls have lined up preemptively (causing the congestion to press back further) and some asshole just takes the closing lane all the way to the end and winds up next to another car. That car should proceed and the car behind it should wait to let the asshole in before proceeding.
It feels wrong, but it’s the least problematic flow. Effectively closing the lane prematurely pushes the congestion back further and starts disrupting other intersections
But if i have too many passengers I wont have enough seat belts
1 car from the left lane, 1 car from the right lane. merging together in an alternating pattern. like the teeth in a zipper. a ‘zipper merge’ if you will.
you acting like the meme is the problem. the car wasn’t ignoring the signs, they were using all of the available space to move forward down the road before merging into the lane.
That doesn’t explain why my air bags wouldn’t work.
just let them merge for fucks sake
I swear either this is some US crap or rage bait.
feels like a bit of both tbh
ITT: people too hyped on zipper-merging to read and comprehend the actual issue being discussed.
Merging at the last minute is the correct way to do it.
Zipper merge, you fucks!
thank you. the math agrees, too. zipper merges are the way to go!
Depends. If there’s lots of traffic, yes. If it’s sparse enough that you can merge without slowing people down too much, just do it early.
If it’s that sparse then the situation in the meme is a non-issue
…until people make it an issue by speeding up and cutting people off, causing it to bottleneck
Yeah, that’s the big asterisk on the “zipper merging is more efficient” premise. It assumes that things are already bottlenecked. If you have the space to merge early without slowing down, you do that. People trying to force their way in at the last minute (when they didn’t have to) is one of the things that triggers the bottleneck in the first place.
K but people don’t tend to complain about those driving down the empty lane if there is no bottle neck.
Obviously if you’re racing down to cut someone off, that’s just as rude as any unsafe merge, but thats not unique to zipper merging, so is it relevant?
Zipper merge is always the most efficient if people dont prevent merges, regardless of road conditions. It means both open lanes are used to move cars forward until the last moment when they cannot. “Move over early” means less throughput in the system, no matter “how open” one lane is at some point.
By blocking merges, you causes braking, which is what causes traffic. You framing people driving efficiently to prevent traffic as “people trying to force their way in last minute” means its you creating traffic, not them.
You’re arguing from a sense of moral suppority, I.e “I got in line early, you should have to,” not from a sense of efficently moving cars down a road.
It’s rare, but I think they’re referring to when it’s open enough and running at optimal speeds. It happened the other day on a side street during an off hour, the free lane couldn’t cut to the front without going like 70mph in a 40mph zone.
Of course a muscle car did just that, but still.
No.
Throughput is determined by number of through-lanes and the speed at which traffic is moving. Period. Completely.
Filling the merge lane when traffic is already slow does nothing but drive density up, which slows traffic further.
Sure, YOU might save some time by passing a bunch of cars, but it DOES NOT IMPROVE THROUGHPUT.
Zipper merging is about NOT having an area of abrupt speed change. It is not about using up a lane that is going away. Period. Ever.
It’s the same as an on-ramp: If you’re speeding up just to slam on your brakes to merge, that’s not zipper merging!
Someone made a simulator for these scenarios where you can adjust on driver behaviour and see metrics in what is most efficient.
And it shows exactly what I’m talking about. When people are more interested in filling lanes than merging efficiently when one is disappearing, they reduce the throughput of traffic over all.
I’ll merge early but also try to go a bit slower than the person in front of me to open a gap which allows me to absorb some of the traffic wave (where flow alternatively speeds up and slows down from people trying to get up to speed only to have to slam on the brakes because some car ahead wasn’t going fast enough to maintain that), as well as leave space for others to merge at speed.
Though I sometimes close the gap if I notice people pulling into the right lane to try to skip the line.
I would agree with this if literally anyone else knew how to zipper merge
The solution is educating people about zipper merging, not getting angry at those who actually do it.
Here in Poland it works quite well, at least when the merge is expected.
But we have signs reminding people of that and they also display this kind of driving tips on info boards on motorways when there is nothing more important.
We only started seeing signs in my city telling people to zipper merge, but I was never taught it in driver’s ed, and we really should be.
I wish we had better signage here like you have in Poland.
Zooming to the front to try to merge at the last minute and creating a choke point that stops traffic for half a mile is NOT the correct way to do a zipper merge…
You shouldn’t be able to, because both lanes are full and moving at half speed.
Except people do it anyway, I’m surprised so many people are trying to pretend they’ve never seen this.
Traffic isn’t some collective consciousness thing that moves like a well-oiled machine. People are selfish and do what they think is to their best advantage, even if it causes the overall traffic conditions to be worse.
But they’re not. Zipper merges might be the efficient thing to do, but here everyone is taught to merge early so the guy doing 70 km/h in the empty lane when the speed limit is 50 and then demanding to merge is generally seen as an asshole by everyone else, especially because those people usually don’t wait for you to make room either, they often just start merging into other cars knowing someone will hit the brakes.
Gave a ride to someone who for one hour kept bitching about drivers who use zipper merge properly. didn’t want to tell him he was wrong.
he was so convinced and fuel by hatred of better drivers.
At a respectable speed though, merge lane is not a passing lane. My rule is whatever speed can be maintained stay with the car speed in the lane to be merged into, jamming the front punishes everyone cueing properly.
The the merging lane is empty for a half km, then it’s proper to drive to the front and merge. If you just drive slow, then you’re a problem for the sake of being a problem.
Drive to the front, match speed, zipper merge. It isn’t hard.
Depends on what you mean by “the front”. Too many people do not know how to look thousands of feet down the road. Probably why so many merge too early.
The assholes that also do not know how to look thousands of feet down the road fly to the end and cram in, which does nothing but further reduce throughput because it slows the lane people need to merge into.
That is literally what a zipper merge is, and what you are supposed to do. Go to the end and merge. If they are “cramming” in, then the people in the lane are not doing their part either, because you are supposed to let people merge.
When people properly zipper merge, traffic will keep flowing. Your complaint about reducing throughput is a “well of fucking course it will” because you’re putting more cars through the same space regardless of where they merge. People who slow down with hundreds of meters of space, then stop and wait for someone to let them in makes the problem worse, not better.
Literally, no it is not. Nowhere does it say you have to get to the end before merging. THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT is to MATCH TRAFFIC SPEEDS AND MAKE ROOM to reduce interruptions. NOT to fill up all available space where ever you find it.
If you fly to the front past a bunch of stopped cars, you ARE NOT MATCHING SPEEDS. Those assholes are not zipper merging. Period.
The people who merge early are not utilizing all space, but THROUGHPUT IS ABOUT LANES AND SPEED. When one lane is disappearing, you CANNOT MAGICALLY ADD THROUGHPUT by cramming in before the bottleneck. Period. Ever.
If you fly to the front past a bunch of stopped cars, you ARE NOT MATCHING SPEEDS. Those assholes are not zipper merging. Period.
You realize if they were to match speed that would mean they must stop in an open lane, and that would just make everything much much worse, yeah? Thats also pretty much illegal everywhere lol.
Pretty confidently incorrect there with your capitals and italics.
That was the respectable speed part. I agree too slow is also an issue.
Fair.
Nothing about the zipper merge says, “last minute”. It is wholly and entirely about matching speeds and making room.
Guess what dictates the speed of the lane that gets to travel forward? The amount of traffic that gets to travel… in that reduced number of lanes.
The people racing to the end of the closing lane are doing nothing but increasing traffic density, which directly hurts the effort of zipper merging. If it’s going from two lanes to one, the density MUST halve somewhere if traffic is full. That’s never going to happen at full speed if there are assholes wedging in at the last second and pushing traffic density past what people comfortably go full speed at.
Hint: it is not bumper to bumper on the highway.
Again: Merging at the last second does nothing but push traffic density up. Often past comfortable densities, which will slow traffic. It’s the exact same reason rolling stops happen even without traffic accidents or lane closures in dense traffic.
Last minute is absolutely part of it. Use the available queueing space to keep congestion from spreading. I don’t know where you drive where bumper to bumper didn’t happen, though.
No it is not. Ever. You cannot magically add throughput by cramming in ahead of the bottleneck. That ONLY increases density, which DEMONSTRABLY reduces speeds.
Guess what happens when speed goes down? Throughput also goes down! You cannot magically add throughput by filling space beyond what is reasonable for the speeds you want to go. That’s not how humans work.
It’s not about throughout. You want previous intersections and ramps to be free. The extra lane is car storage space. If one lane is stopped and the other is free you absolutely move up to the merge point. Safely, mind you. The speed limit is way too fast, 30-40 kph is enough. Merging early causes shockwaves that turn into full blown stops upstream. Plus you block the whole lane until you’ve merged.
I’ve done traffic control systems for almost a decade so I actually know a little about the subject.In some situations, it’s not all about throughput.
Though traffic congestion is ALWAYS about throughput. You want less congestion? Then don’t rush to the end of a closed lane and cram in. That ALWAYS hurts throughput, which ALWAYS increases congestion. Period.
Sure, if traffic IS backed up to other roads, then absolutely, fill up the closing lane and get off those other roads, though understand that filling up that lane will, always, always hurt congestion if throughput is already struggling.
Yes before the lane is closed. They are not doing that.
No. You are explicitly supposed to go to the very end of the closing lane, and then merge, not before it closes.
Well a closing lane would be marked with an arrow pointing to the lane next to it, and if it’s closed it’s a red X. You merge before the red X. I don’t see a closing lane the same as a closed lane. Maybe it’s a translation thing. And every country is different.
If it’s a lane closure, yes, you zipper merge at the end-- imo, because you need visual confirmation of what’s happening but also because it’s predictable and usually both lanes are already matching speeds and zipper merging ahead of you. There’s no need to complicate things with an early swap. Granted, I rarely see a lane closure warning more than 100 meters, if at all… in my tiny car, the best indicator that we’re merging is sudden lane changes of everyone in front of me.
Where I draw the line is when there’s an exit only lane on a freeway and people are zooming along and suddenly want in. Did they jump into that lane just to get ahead? Or are they a helpless victim of circumstance from the latest onramp and unable to merge until now? I let them in, but I’m usually bitter about it.
I think people forget that nobody is racing you. If someone merges into traffic in front of you, theyre not winning and youre not losing. It’s all OK. You dont have to be upset.
This article falsely assumes the only options are halting traffic to wait for an opening or dash faster than speed of traffic until the end of the lane closure then just expect someone to allow room so kinda a bad explanation of zipper merge and proper driving etiquette
Not sure if you took drivers ed but zipper merging is not zooming past stopped cars to last second dart over in the shoulder, it’s speed matching the lane you are merging into to weave in like a zipper. Crazy how even the name isn’t informative enough for people to understand the concept
So if the traffic is slowed down you want everyone to just move over early making it even worse…?
No, you populate both lanes than alternate right of way.
If both lanes are stopped, sure.
If you’re zipping past stopped cars in a lane about to close, you’re the asshole, period.
No, those cars merged incorrectly too early, they’re the assholes since they created the traffic first and are now mad other drivers are doing it correctly.
The amount of traffic makes no difference, if the lane is open, fill it up, that’s the most efficient for everyone.
Just because you made a poor choice doesn’t mean everyone else who didn’t is an asshole lmfao.
Why have two 1 mile long backups when you could have one 2 mile long backup.
*Taps head
Because the consequences is a low trust society where people hate each other
I’ve been reading this for years, and the hypothesis always seems to be that zipper merging is good because it maximizes road usage. You know what else maximizes road usage? Bumper to bumper gridlock.
Zipper merging, when done properly by enough people, prevents (selfish) others from racing past
People cramming in at he last moment on a jammed highway exit is a different story
Gridlock doesn’t maximize it. Bumper-to-bumper at 80mph does, though
Good luck getting humans to do that, though. Bumper to bumper only makes people slow down due to discomfort, so cramming to the front and increasing density to bumper to bumper will only slow traffic further.
It’s the same reason rolling stops happen on highways even without traffic accidents or lane closures. When density gets too high, people will slow down, and the assholes thinking bumper to bumper at the last second is zipper merging are indeed assholes slowing traffic down.
I don’t understand people like this. There are two lanes. Use them. If everyone merges into one lane over two miles it’s going to create a HUUGE backup. Use both lanes, zipper merge at the end. Stop being stupid and use your brain instead of your emotions.
It’s weird when people think getting places fast or first is the point of driving.
“Safe” is the word you’re looking for. Then, as fast as safe will calmly allow.
Zipper merge you fucking savages
When
