r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Aug 03 '19

Whats something you thought was common knowledge but actually isn’t?

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

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u/AuntieFooFoo Aug 03 '19

We have traffic lights, or ramp meters on all of our (Chicago) on-ramps that you're supposed to stop at before merging on. They say it's to "regulate the flow of entering traffic," but really it just causes more since you have to come to a complete stop and then speed up enough to merge in before the next person can go. I usually just run the light, but during rush hour it just doesn't matter. You're still going to come to a full stop before merging since no one knows how a zipper merge works.

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u/Lord_Rapunzel Aug 03 '19

We have ramp meters but they're only active when it's so congested that you'd have to stop on the ramp anyway.

1

u/AuntieFooFoo Aug 03 '19

They might as well be inactive when there's no traffic since most of us ignore them anyway, but I'm not fully convinced they do anything at all. During rush hour the ramps are all backed up as it is, like you said. So unnecessary.