I don’t know what it is, but in my experience, Hawai’i driving is just so much better than anywhere else I’ve lived–especially when it comes to this exact scenario. When there’s a lane closure, most people just… get over. Give a shaka, get a shaka, done. When you do have someone blast past everyone to try and merge at the last possible minute people just… let them in. Might get stink eye for do it. Maybe “one finger shaka.” But it’s either some tourist who doesn’t know better and we all feel smug knowing that they have to go back to where they came from or it’s someone in a genuine hurry and just let em go.
I think it’s partly due to Hawai’i having a more collectivist mindset. Everybody is just trying to get to where they need to be, everyone kind of understands that traffic can suck and so no one is too concerned with “being on time” (again, my experience). Plus there aren’t any billboards on the roads (at least not that I’ve seen) and you pretty much have something pretty to look at the whole time you’re in traffic. Lower speed limits too. It’s peaceful. You rarely hear someone honk. Though I will say that I’ve noticed drivers getting more aggressive as more local kine people move away.
I went back to Florida a few years ago to visit my mom while she still lived there and it was miserable to drive anywhere. I got the sense that no one wanted to be where they were–they didn’t want to be in their car so they raced off to work, where they also did not want to be, so they raced home, where they also did not want to be; all in Florida where I feel like most people who live there don’t want to be tbh. I used to be an angry and impatient driver. In Hawai’i I’m like one grandpa. I stay in slow lane and drive the speed limit.
Haha knew the zipper merge comments would not disappoint.
Y’all dont understand Americans or how we drive. It’s all based on pride and ego, not sense.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This will only be done right by AI.
Agreed on never being the one blocking merges, but for the merging party, “if people don’t prevent merges” is such a huge caveat that I think attempting a zipper merge at a lane ending at any appreciable speed is impractical at best and downright dangerous at worst.
If everyone is traveling slow already, failing to merge quickly at the lane ending isn’t a huge threat to safety and just a slight hit to efficiency. Most merges I’ve experienced are probably in the 40 to 80 mph range though. In that case, you absolutely do want to take the first decent merging opportunity you can, because waiting to do it until the lane ending can have huge safety and/or efficiency consequences if another good merging opportunity doesn’t open up at speed.
Also, I’m pretty sure zipper merging was mentioned zero times in driving lessons and tests where I’m from, so you should basically just assume other drivers don’t even have it as a concept. If you’re from somewhere where more people practice it regularly, then I can see why you are more encouraged to enforce it as a baseline.
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.
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?
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.
thank you. the math agrees, too. zipper merges are the way to go!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh they read it, they just think they’re special
Zipper merge you fucking savages
When
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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…
The zipper merge is supposed to happen at the point where it goes from 2 lanes to 1, not earlier, so if there’s room for that guy to zoom past, everyone is doing it wrong.
Oh no, they definitely read it. They just don’t care and expect you to let them merge.
Bonus point for the fuckers that speed up in order to pass as many people as possible before forcing their way into the exit
Which they can’t do if everybody stays in lane and waits till the last moment.
Few things bring me joy like showing just a wee bit of room to bait those fools to try to cut a dozen people off just to slowly close the gap as they approach my blind spot and force them behind me
I watch people get out of line then dash down the single file all to get 4 cars ahead so they get to work 4sec faster. No sympathy for antisocial scum
Because that’s the correct procedure
No its not. If all the cars are in one lane and you drive past all of those cars in the empty lane and then expect all those cars you passed to let you merge, you’re a piece of shit.
Yeah you dumbass. So use both lanes and then zipper merge where they merge
In sorry, but if all the cars are in the open lane and you zoom passed in the closing lane, I’m not going to let you merge. Deal with it.
Lane shouldn’t be clear. That’s the issue, here.
OK, that’s not my fault. I just obey traffic. Again, if everyone is in the open lane and you cruise by in the closing lane by yourself, I’m not letting you merge. Obey traffic.
Why is the other lane open, that’s the problem.
Why would all of the cars be in one lane before the other lane closes? That’s silly
I hate to break it to you, but you have to merge before the lane closes. If it’s 20 feet or 200 feet, you’re still merging before the lane is closed.
Guess how fast you eat up hundreds of feet at highway speeds? In seconds.
If you want traffic to stay at highway speeds, you ALWAYS merge before you HAVE to leave your lane.
It’s the same principle with on ramps. The people racing up an on-ramp just to wedge into slower trafdic are helping no one.
If you’re talking about doing it at 60 you can still use both lanes as long as you aren’t following the car in front of you dangerously close or jerks who don’t let merges in there’ll already be enough room to merge. Cutting to one lane early is like people who don’t use the on ramp to accelerate and slow everyone down when they merge then accelerate
The vast majority of situations where people are making faces at the assholes sitting at the end of the closed lane is when traffic is already over-dense and going slow.
In those situations, which are often, racing to the end of the closing lane is just being a line-cutting shithead, and has nothing to do with zipper merging. At that point, they’re literally only butting in on through-traffic.
Hate to break it to you but literally every other country on earth zipper merges and it’s far more efficient
Yes, they’re more efficient. They’re also more efficient than rushing up to the end of a closing lane and merging into an ALREADY FULL through-lane. That is NOT zipper merging. It is cutting in line. That will always, ALWAYS, reduce throughput. Period.
You cannot cheat physics and human predictability. Rushing to the end of a closed lane WILL NEVER INCREASE THROUGHPUT. Period,
THATS WHAT ZIPPER MERGING IS YOU DUNCE
Because the sign clearly says “lane closure ahead merge now.”
No, it doesn’t. It never would, because NHTSA knows that utilizing all lanes during a lane closure reduces backups. Show me a sign where it tells drivers to merge now that isn’t at the actual merge and I will eat a hat
It does NOT reduce backups. You cannot magically increase throughput by cramming in before the bottleneck. It can reduce how physically long a backup gets, which can keep backups from growing off of the highway. Though you still cannot magically add throughput by cramming in ahead of a bottleneck. Ever. Period.
You can add throughput by zipper merging predictably all day long instead of every car jockeying for position and feeling entitled to block other road users from legally merging and causing all kinds of road rage based holdups though
Thus might be the best rage bait I’ve even seen on Lemmy. o7
Yes yeeees Everyone fight
deleted by creator
Wow who would have thought that this would be such a divided topic
Heeheehee
Just merge and move on with your life
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.
The problem is pure selfishness. Can’t allow a single car to get ahead or your day is ruined. They seem to think their being earlier is a confirmed reservation and rightfully their spot.
Then there’s those absolute fuckheads who drive in the middle of the road blocking both lanes.
I remember an article from a certain parody magazine about “the state is introducing the Velcro merge, because majority is to stupid for the zipper merge” and they photoshopped a street sign with cars in random angles honking at each other xD
Do you like grid locked traffic? Because merging 2 miles early causes grid lock traffic.
Not really. The traffic has to squeeze through the same number of lanes at some point. That’s the whole damn point everyone is missing who’s defending these assholes.
You’re not helping by increasing traffic density beyond comfortable levels. Period. Ever.
That’s why rolling stops happen on freeways even without traffic accidents or lane closures. Density determines the speed people feel safe going. That is never bumper to bumper at highway speeds.
Not even the psychos in San Jose and LA go highway speeds when it’s as dense as these last-second merging assholes make it.
Fair enough point about traffic difference, but to call them “last minute assholes” is a bit pretentious. I travel a lot as I do for work, there are many work zones that have signs stating “use whole lane, zipper merge” when there’s a lane closure. Why merge early leaving an entire lane empty for 2 miles? Then you’ve got some asshat sitting or coasting halfway blocking said lane, guarding people from using the whole lane. I guess this is another one of those unsolved debates no one can seem to come to an agreement on.
It is pretentious, because this is not a discussion about zipper merging in a vacuum. There’s a comic about someone leering at someone trying to push in.
Do you think there’s time to make faces at someone in properly flowing traffic where people aren’t trying to get right next to each other?
People that glaze zipper merging are ignoring that the real issue is the bottleneck caused by the lane reduction.
Yep. Not only is stuffing yourself into denser traffic bad for throughput, it’s not a part of zipper merging.
It’s just something they’re taught because it can reduce the tail of congestion and can sometimes keep it from spreading to other roads. Bad teachers and idiots conflate it with zipper merging so that idiots like these commenters think it’s part of zipper merging and defend it.
Whereas actual zipper merging doesn’t give a shit where it happens. All it requires is that through-traffic gives roughly 1-1 room for merging traffic, and that merging traffic look for and take an opening.
If they were ACTUALLY practicing zipper merging, neither lane would let themselves condense past two vehicle lengths per vehicle, which obviously doesn’t happen when lane closures cause congestion.
Not really. The traffic has to squeeze through the same number of lanes at some point.
Yeah, and the most efficient way to do that is for everyone to zipper merge at the same point. You can’t just have everyone decide over the course of two miles when they think it’s appropriate to start a zipper merge; that’s not a zipper merge, that’s just changing lanes, and it creates unpredictable traffic patterns that lead to congestion. The end of the lane is obviously the best fixed point for everyone to merge because A) you utilize both lanes as long as possible for optimal efficiency and B) even the most oblivious dumb-ass knows they need to change lanes when they run out of lane.
Yes, that’s most efficient, but you know what hurts efficiency?
Assholes running up an empty lane just to expect to be let into a lane that’s ALREADY full.
That’s not zipper merging. That’s being an asshole cutting in line. It ONLY slows down the queue that, sure, should have formed at the end of the closed lane in an ideal world.
Though that fact doesn’t make them a zipper merger. They’re still an asshole further slowing traffic.
If you’re talking about someone exiting their lane to enter a lane that’s about to close in order to get ahead, sure,.that’s kinda a dick move, but if you’re saying that someone should leave their lane early because the lane that’s ending isn’t very busy, no, that’s wrong. Even if the closing lane is going much faster, when that lane ends, the driver will have to slow down to match the speed of the other lane and wait to be let in. The driver behind him will catch up, and a zipper merge will develop. They’re not doing anything wrong, you just mad that they’re passing you.
Also, a lane can never be, “full,” just busy. You think they’re at fault because they’re trying to get into a lane that’ doesn’t have room for them, but actually you’re at fault because you’re not making room for them.
lol Good job imagining smoothly flowing traffic. You must not live near a major city, because lane closures on highways always devolve into the exact scenario you’re attempting to ignore.
I’ve been stop-and-go traffic probably literally hundreds of times and that’s EXACTLY how people merge: by blazing past the already stopped traffic and cram in right at the last second.
I’ve only been in smoothly flowing yet dense traffic caused by lane closures maybe a handful of times. It worked out ONLY because traffic wasn’t yet dense enough to induce a rolling stop that’d bottleneck at the closure point.
The assholes rushing up to the end of a closed lane when traffic is already slow ARE NOT ZIPPER MERGING. They’re cutting in line. They’re further increasing traffic density, which ALWAYS slows even unrestricted traffic after a certain point.
That is why rolling stops happen even without lane closures or traffic accidents: people WILL slow down once density reaches a certain point, and cramming a closed lane full is INCREASING DENSITY.
This isn’t rocket science, yet a lot of you fuckwits are clearly still playing with crayons.
I think you mean congestion. Gridlock is when cars attempt to cross an intersection during a green light even though there is too much traffic to pass completely, leaving them stranded mid-intersection when the light turns red, thereby blocking the perpendicular traffic from crossing the intersection when their light turns green (literally locking the grid).
That’s blocking the box, gridlock is just bumper to bumper traffic going stop and go in any condition.
Congestion is vehicles still in motion, but slowed down due to volume.
No, that’s definitely gridlock, blocking the box is just another name for it.
The term gridlock is also used to describe high traffic congestion with minimal flow (which is simply a traffic jam), where a blocked grid system is not involved. By extension, the term has been applied to situations in other fields where flow is stalled by excess demand, or in which competing interests prevent progress.
If there is a specific term, why continue to use the dated generic term that also means something else? A specific type of gridlock can also be blocking the box, it’s a generic term now.
I don’t know what to tell you, I’d literally never heard of," blocking the box," until you said it. Meanwhile, Gridlock is so ubiquitous and well understood that, as your quote points out, it’s a universal metaphor for a blockage or impass.
Also, if we just accept this vague use of gridlock, (I’ve never heard anyone is it for anything other than actual gridlock, but whatever) you realize that this quote explicitly states that some people use, “gridlock,” and, “traffic congestion,” interchangeably, meaning your claim thar, “gridlock,” means “stop and go traffic,” not, “contested traffic,” is flat out wrong, right?
