Zipper merge is not what this post is about. This post is about the people who pass the drivers who are zipper merging to get further along in the line.
And, if you still want to argue that the one driver who pulls this is “doing it the right way” and everyone else is wrong, then know that “technically right” doesn’t always win. You need to “read the room”, and follow what’s happening to get along. Angrily flying ahead to “teach the idiots how it’s done” doesn’t work, because the “idiots” don’t understand what you’re doing.
You don’t zipper merge before the lane actually closes
There is no zipper merging if traffic is already stopped.
That’s just taking turns at that point.
I wasn’t talking about traffic stopping, I was talking about the point at which the merge should take place
Should take place? Sure. Does it have to happen there? No.
The entire point is, if traffic is already slow, running up the closed lane to cram into already too full through-traffic IS NOT ZIPPER MERGING. It’s being an asshole further slowing traffic.
If you are zipper merging before the lane closes you are doing it incorrectly. In a proper merge, there is no space for someone to overtake along since the zipper occurs right at the point that the lane closure has been created (and is usually designed at for a multitude of reasons)
Completely wrong.
Zipper merging is a merging technique. It doesn’t give a fuck where it happens. Period. Ever.
What determines how many cars get through is ONLY determined by how many through-lanes there are and how fast traffic can flow. The morons flying up an empty closing lane just to cram into a lane that’s already slow or stopped, ARE NOT ZIPPER MERGING. Ever. They’re dipshits cutting in line. Period. Ever.
They NEVER help solve congestion. For fuck’s sake, this is not a hard concept, but all you idiots apparently cannot even fathom why traffic slows down when a lane is GOING AWAY. Fuck, humanity is doomed if ya’ll are even remotely ‘average’ intelligence…
Merging at the last minute is the correct way to do it.
Zipper merge, you fucks!
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.
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.
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.
