Literally the first 2 posts as I opened the app
These ‘zipper merge’ vs ‘early merge’ arguments are really the worst. At the same time, the lack of consensus fully explains why merge zones like that are such a mess.
I remember driving through OK, and the state law is “early merge.” I thought it was all bullshit, buuut they have studies 1 year after they implemented it that it actually cut down on traffic somehow. I still believe the late zipper merge is better. Use the whole road until you can’t!
Its funny that 102 comments will lead to meta reaction posts here in the fediverse
If there’s heavy traffic in your city and private cars are still preferable to public transport, your infrastructure is shit and you should go pester your politicians about it
What do I do if the public transit is pretty good and the city is walkable, but all the jobs are in office parks 40 minutes out of town?
So the city isn’t walkable, then
Define walkable.
I can walk to literally everything I need in my daily life except my job, and the share of residents lucky enough to work in the city can walk or bike to those too. My city scores incredibly high in both walk and bike scores; this drives real estate prices up, which drives employers to the suburbs, and—wouldn’t you know it!—the cheapest places to build office parks are situated away from the commuter transit.
except my job
That’s not walkable. The definition is not that difficult
The definition is not that difficult
Idk if you’re trolling or just obstinate, but if you don’t explain the exact definition you are using, it is impossible to determine what meets it and what does not.
For example:
Walkability is a measure of how accessible services and amenities are by foot or transit. A city is walkable if a broad range of these are thusly available.
They’re not being obstinate. You are working very hard not to understand that your job has to be walkable too.
Sure, your definition works. Your place of work is obviously included into the list of location that needs to be accessible, since it’s somewhere you commute to almost every day.
Fair enough, but I would contend “a broad range” is compatible with “all but one”
Let me just walk my 315lb welder to work each morning. Can I borrow your kids radio flyer after you walked them to school?
If only the only people that use cars on a daily basis were the ones that actually need to, maybe you wouldn’t be so bitter and angry about it.
If your job makes you take a welder home with you at night, you need a new job.
Have you ever heard the term welding rig? Gas /diesel welder? Self-employed? Field repair? Millwright ? Heavy equipment? Residential fence/gate repair. Structural? You know all those things that require mobile welding.
Walkable: jobs, homes, and basic essentials shopping coexist near enough to each other.
It’s not walkable if you only have 2 out of 3.
Pester your politicians that they forgot a part of the walkable city. Either a walkable workplace or work from home.
Hello, yes. I work in construction. I carry 50+lbs (23+kg) of tools and/or material to work (which constantly changes locations as buildings and projects finished being built).
How do I fit into the walkable city plan?
I never claimed everyone could work from home. But I think you’ll agree, that your commute would probably become quicker and less stressful, if the majority of office workers could stay at home.
Less traffic if you have to drive, less crowded public transport. As a side effect life in the city might also become less stressful, as the noise from traffic reduces.
I’m in an odd situation where there’s heavy traffic but we have very good bike lanes and bike trails. Yet I am afraid to use the bike lanes most of the time because the drivers are so insane. And half the people who do ride bikes end up doing it wrong because they feel unsafe: they ride in the bike lane against traffic or just ride on the sidewalks where they become the threat: to pedestrians.
Public transport would still alleviate the issue by moving a portion of the drivers off the roads. Which, in turn, will make bike lanes safer.
Yes. I’m not sure how it’s the infrastructure’s fault that we don’t have better transit though. Better transit would mean busses here as we have decent bike support and regional rail. We do have busses, too, but for them to be better they need to go more places that the cars are going.
And actually the biggest reason we have so many cars is they keep building more and more housing further and further out from our town, which then needs to pass through our town to get anywhere.
There’s multiple layers to this, but if all you wanted to say was “your infrastructure is shit” then, well, you’ve said it.
How could having my own personal space that operates on my schedule ever not be preferable to being crammed into a smelly tube with a bunch of other people?
Maybe if you gave even a fraction of care that you give your car to the people around you, it wouldn’t be smelly and crammed.
What am I supposed to do about either of those issues?
Refer to my original comment
Pester politicians? To do what? Tell people to shower and lose weight?
To build more public transport instead of parking lots and highways lanes. Then you’ll have enough space to travel comfortably.
Some people think that if there’s a hwy lane closure in 30 miles, you’re the asshole of you don’t immediately merge over
I don’t mind personally, but don’t assume that your blinker means I HAVE to let you in
Definitely. I personally merge earlier, knowing it’s less efficient and will put me back relative to zipper merging - just to avoid the stress of trying to get in between potentially uncooperative mergees. But I also don’t get too mad at the mergers - maybe they’re in a legit hurry
and will put me back relative t
And everybody else in the lane.
If there’s a lot of traffic it makes sense to try and find room to merge early though
“Early” being relative to the specific vehicles involved. Lorries/tractor-trailers need a LOT more time to find an opening before a merge than a “four-wheeler” does, for example.
Besides it’s long been proven that “zipper merging” - which is basically waiting up to almost the last second to merge - is the more efficient method.
Came here to find this argument.
Well done everyone!
It’s more efficient if people let you pass in front of them. Which they might not
Not very efficient if you have to stop next to a moving lane lol
That’s a training issue more than anything else. People have never been taught how to merge well, and so inevitably everybody has their own “camp” when it comes to best practices. Those who complain about “fairness” typically have a more myopic view than those who take “the big picture” into account (or they have a faulty “big picture” in mind). I’ll grant that a good number of those “cheaters” are indeed just being selfish pricks, but statistics still show that zipper merging is best in the end. Far too many people care more about their illogical feelings than the facts, tho.
Zipper merging is ideal in certain situations but not all of them. It reduces the total “length” of traffic the choke point, but doesn’t necessarily increase the total throughout. It’s primarily meant to prevent traffic from backing up to other lights and intersections on the road. The throughput optimum for lighter traffic is to merge earlier (though not miles back) to maintain speed, and people who force their way in at the last second cause the standard “traffic wave” problems. That’s why it isn’t quite as clear cut as people make it - the optimum behavior is situational and that level of complexity is not well gasped by your average person who is profoundly uncurious of the world around them.
Then there’s the issue of people wanting to zipper merge in places where it is completely inappropriate because it blocks a travel lane. This was a weekly debate on our local subreddit when I was still using it. The number of people who insisted that a highway interchange should be treated as a zipper, despite that blocking the main road, is high enough that I am convinced that the zipper narrative has been a net negative. Though I also concede that most of these people would still be idiots about it without the plausible justification for bad behavior.
Zipper merges are always more efficient, though the problem is idiots don’t understand what they are. They are not racing up to the last moment you need to merge. Ever. They are never that. Ever.
They are ONLY two rules:
-
If you need to merge, roughly match speeds with through-traffic once you’ve identified an opening, line up with that opening, and merge.
-
If you’re in the through-lane, make room for roughly 1 to 1 cars to be able to merge in.
It is a whole different matter to occupy all of closing lanes or merge lanes. Solves a totally different problem. The people insisting it’s part of zipper merging are idiots that do not understand zipper merging.
-
Nope. Waiting until the last second is not zipper merging.
If there’s a lot of traffic it makes sense to try and find room to merge early though
Not at all. You destroy a smooth process where both lanes drive at the same speed. It turns into a stop and go in one lane while the other keeps getting filled with new cars from the back that join at the last moment.
It always makes sense to merge at the last safe moment, but only if everyone else is doing that which requires everyone to trust each other and I can trust myself but I can’t trust any of you fuckers, etc.
Yeah, it would take a concerted, long-running campaign to reeducate drivers on the topic, as well as a nearly unified backing from those in a position to deliver it. Considering how political issues have been going downhill for so long that we’ve effectively sunk well past unheard of new lows, I’m not holding my breath on that one even though it really shouldn’t matter that much to them to be worth fighting over.
We all were supposed to be taught it in drivers ed.
The problem is most people are shit drivers who don’t know the law or the rules or even the guidelines.
I’d say a fair amount to have at least some idea that they’re doing things they really shouldn’t, but just DGAF. It feels like the majority of the populace have become significantly more selfish over the years, but will never admit that to themselves - let alone anyone else. It’s the dog-eat-dog mindset inching towards its inevitable end.
Only because of dumbasses who won’t let everyone zipper merge. If we could actually educate people on how to zipper merge, we wouldn’t need to pull off a heist to get out of an ending lane.
If only. But as things stand, I’d rather merge early than have to stop next to a moving lane. Less dangerous too than to try to merge from zero to however fast the other lane is going.
Some people eat up rage bait like a fine meal
And some people think inflating numbers proves their point.
Plus, If you have 30 miles of signs telling you to get over and you wait until you are forced by the actual lane closure, yes you are the asshole.
I will not be taking questions.
Pushing people to seek a detour is the only effective way of actually reducing the effects of a traffic jam.
We all zipper merged back when we were traveling close to full speed. We would continue through the closure at nearly full speed, except some jackass has decided to run up to the end and come to a complete stop before attempting to merge.
Now, we all have to zipper merge at 5mph instead of full speed, because some jackass couldn’t figure out how to do it at the right time.
Anybody who has played Factorio should be able to recognize the problem. If the lane is obstructed anywhere, the capacity of the roadway is the capacity of the remaining open lanes. Filling the closed lane before the obstruction maximizes the duration of the traffic jam.
Ideally, zipper merging should start immediately after the last exit before the obstruction. It should be used to push as many people as possible to exit and seek a detour. The lane should be effectively closed from the exit before to the exit after the obstruction.
No, this “solves the problem” in the same way that moving the baggage carousel further away from the gate reduces complaints. It isn’t actually improving traffic flow; it’s making people complain about it less.
-
The article actually mentions zipper merging isn’t as effective at full speed.
-
People utilizing the closing lane up to the end frees up space at the rear, which allows more people who can take advantage of an exit shortly beforehand to actually do so.
-
Your stated ideal of closing the lane from the prior exit onwards isn’t practical if said exit isn’t within a reasonably short range. Never mind you’d definitely increase the number of people needlessly exiting and causing further problems on several other local roads, thereby expanding the impact rather than reducing it.
-
Your premise also seems to be built upon the notion of stopped traffic rather than just a forced merging into fewer (or one) lanes where traffic still can flow reasonably well once past the merge point.
I’m assuming Factorio is a factory simulation, and that would involve mechanical & physical concerns, but that’s much more consistent than the wide variety of human responses and actions in such situations.
#1 is simply false. All merging is more effective at full speed.
#2 demonstrates a lack of comprehension. With the right lane closed ahead, the slowed traffic in the left lane indicates the effects of the obstruction ahead, and informs drivers that they should exit.
If the left lane isn’t backed up, the effects of the obstruction are not severe, and there is no need to exit.
Allowing both lanes to back up introduces the worst delay, and doubles the number of vehicles needlessly exposed to that delay.
#3 correctly identifies that the load is spread among more routes, but fails to comprehend that those other routes are normally underutilized and have considerable excess capacity available to ameliorate the problem. Diverting excess traffic to routes with excess capacity is a solution, not a problem.
#4, stopped traffic is inevitable with zipper merging immediately before the obstruction. Anyone with more than a million miles of highway experience can corroborate that assertion.
To prevent further troll responses, I’ve got an unexpected few minutes so I’ll try to reply.
- Once again you’re ignoring context. Zipper merging is not significantly more effective at reducing any sort of backup at full speed than other methods. You are essentially saying the same thing I did — whether you just weren’t keeping the full context in mind, or you treated it separately just so you could be argumentative is something only you can say.
- Once again, ignoring context. I was obviously referring to what those PAST the exit could do to help those behind them. The traffic is needlessly stopped by the inconsistent response to the merge - if both lanes kept going at a slightly reduced speed (mainly for safety) and spaced themselves appropriately in the leadup to the merge itself, then they could easily merge without stopping. Once again, you’re seemingly basing your argument upon the concept of a stoppage — the very thing zipper merging is designed to avoid.
- Wow, what a fucking assumption. Even if those other routes were that underutilized (exceedingly unlikely), they won’t be for long with the amount of traffic you’d quickly fill them with. They would likely be “underutilized” for a reason, or people would be using them - especially the locals would would actually benefit the most from taking that exit and who likely would already be doing so if it were normally more beneficial.
- It’s “inevitable” mainly because of the inconsistent response of those involved. Once the motoring public at large understands the method and utilizes it, the only way it doesn’t minimize the likelihood of a stoppage is if the roadway is at full capacity already - not impossible, but it’d be bad planning by traffic control to have required that merge at times when that would be the case, which is a different problem entirely.
Now, with this troll-induced (not you) response complete, I’m done with this.
I actually have that 1MM+ as a professional driver - you’re wrong, but too stubborn to admit it. I’m too tired to bother arguing with you - especially since I’ve got some more of that same work to do in the morning. I’m done. Gnite.
lol You’re wrong and too stupid to understand, and too stupid to understand how bad a shitty appeal to authority is. Fucking sad.
-
If you have 30 miles of ending lane warnings, you should still ride it until the actual end. It’s best for congestion. Leaving a whole lane unused is pointless. It’s better for everyone if you wait to merge.
God damnit , now I gotta go watch police academy 1-765 now
I know posts like that don’t actually help, but the people on the road can’t hear me when I yell at them for doing shit wrong and I need to get it out of my system.
What discussion? Zipper merge is a well defined technique.
More like half the people know how to zipper merge and the other half try to justify merging a mile early and getting angry when people pass them and zipper merge properly.
Sorry bud, you’re the party that doesn’t understand zipper merging.
Let pedestrians and cyclists go first. Scramble walk is okay and sjould be encouraged
I like how I stumbled into your
sjouldright after you made me imagine the scramble-walk. Somehow my brain crossed circuits and when I readsjould, my imagined scramble-walker slipped on wet pavement and half fell (and then recovered, by hitting the word “encouraged”, lol).Brains are weird.
I hate scramble walks that act like you can’t still walk while traffic is going. The light is green just turn the walk sign on.
I support this wholeheartedly. Cars should be banned.
Hee hee hee ho ho ho ha ha ha 😉
why?
When it comes to traffic people have wildly different ideas about things.
Some people think slow means 5 mph slower on the highway when others are talking about 15+ slower in center lanes generally for faster traffic. Local expectations about behaving in traffic means someone waiting closer to a merge is just doing the right thing for a zipper merge and other people are used to assholes raving to the merge and then forcing themselves in.
People often also thing of the other behaviors of drivers that do certain things that makes one thing more dangerous. In my experience drivers who are significantly slower in traffic by 10-15 mph on the highway frequently do rapid lane changes without signaling, brake suddenly for no reason, and other signs that they really should not be driving a vehicle. People who don’t drive on highways is not going to be thinking of that kind of speed disparity or the dangers if they drive 45 or under where going 15 mph less is annoying but not really dangerous.
Communication about things that have wildly different experiences means people talking past each other leads to arguments.
Don’t mind me, appropriating this meme.
Be. The. Sunshine.
Be the honest dark cloud fogging up the narrative.
Just here checking in on the narrative.
It’s dark and foggy. But you’ll have to bear with it.
Hot tip: if your bumper to bumper during congestion or construction periods. You need to have at least 2-3 (minimum 1) car spaces between you and the car/truck in front of you. This way you’ll maintain a steady speed (maybe btwn 2-9 mph) rather than coming to complete halt every stretch.
Even hotter tip: on a highway, if the line on your right is free, switch to it. Left line(s) is only for overtaking.
Once drivers learn this simple rule, speed limits can be lifted on certain highway parts so whoever wants to go faster now can fulfill their desire.
But but but but
(Continuing on the meta where slowbros and campers took aim at a bumper sticker that said “keep right” with strawmen)
Yep. Tailgating causes fullstops.
That just invites people to keep pulling in front of you, and now you’re driving slowly while the lane in front of you is moving faster, and you’ve become the traffic jam.
Just like like my comment - you got hooked for no reason. The congestion is already there why are you gonna pile up… on a queue…
You try to keep 3 car spaces in front of you. Someone pulls in front of you, so now there’s only 2 spaces. So when traffic starts moving again, you stay still and wait for there to be 3 spaces. Then somebody pulls in front of you, so there’s only 2 spaces in front of you, so you stop and wait for there to be 3 spaces in front of you…
Everybody behind you is going slower now because you won’t match the speed of traffic.
(Depends are you in stretches of congestion or are is it all clear?) Okay what’s the point if there traffic ahead. You’re gonna speed up to get up to that car who jumped in the lane to come to complete stop? I see various types of stop gaps in 30 mi stretches and seen phantom stops for reason (or ppl on their cell phones¿) My friend, no disrespect but I’d like to keep steady speed (albeit it’s 2 or 5mph) than come up to a cars rear bumper and sniff their exhaust pipe.
increasing FB type paranoia
This post was sending me, none of yal know how to drive like a standard human.
I didnt open that post cause I knew immediately that it would devolve into the age old fight of when to merge. This confirms I made the right choice, to always merge instantaneously when a sign that lane is ending is first seen in the distance.
I thought everyone would just get along and be happy
Hot take:
No matter how good or crap you think the traffic laws are in your place are, the best bet is to follow them because if you don’t you will likely have to pay a lot of money that you probably don’t have to just throw away. Speed limits are limits, meaning maximums, merging should go like a zipper, yielding to traffic already up to speed is safest, driving without substances impairing your body is safest.
Its quite simple but a lot of people think they should be allowed to rebel against the laws and get away with doing whatever they want because the rules shouldn’t apply to them specifically.I’m kind of a bad driver but I try cuz u gotta yk
Sometimes it’s like a red and there’s someone trying to pull out of some lot and realistically I could’ve given space for them to leave but I wasn’t paying attention so I didn’t 😔😔😔 I always feel so ashamed when I do that
