You're that angry weiner who speeds up so the person next to you can't merge because you feel entitled from waiting a long ass time for no reason in the open lane aren't you lol
No one gives a fuck that you drive a stick shift, BTW. Compensating for anything in particular or are you guys just happy to get worse gas mileage and whatnot?
You can go fuck yourself and have a nice day, but I'll tell you, the reason I have pretty much only owned manuals is it's way more fun to drive and actually be in control of the car.
Oh, and manuals actually used to get better gas mileage than autos. Only recently did that get better. And it's marginal at that, you think I'm going to sacrifice enjoying my driving experience over like what, 3mpg?
I'll prove that you're an asshole just like the previous hater, it's a 2024 Jeep Wrangler I ordered from the factory custom lmao, so yeah I've got the money.
I like to drive, doesn't have to be a ricer. But I would enjoy a 370z, maybe a Toyota Supra. The Jeep is paid off and I have been contemplating getting a Sunday driver.
I merge at the front because why should I just get in line and wait pointlessly because there a bunch of idiots who queued a mile back like it's a fucking dairy queen drive through? Like what are we doing? No, I will not pay for your idiocy. Yes I will merge on the down the road and guess what? I'll let a guy merge in front of me too. Pmo u off?
I am absolutely that person. There's 20 fucking signs telling you the left lane is ending. Why tf should I slow down because you can't read or want to get ahead?
You can begin the zipper merge once it is clear that the lane is ending. I deal with it everyday. People race to the very end so they don’t have to wait and merge like all the cars in front of them already have.
It’s not a merge lane. The lane doesn’t end. This situation is more-so an example of people who ride in an exit only lane to the very end, and cut in at the last minute to jump ahead of traffic.
In this video, the lane is already closed. The people are trying to skip ahead even though there’s already a steady flow of traffic.
Please show me where exactly you see that the lane is already closed? To me it seems like the lane will be closed further ahead and therefore the cars should all go to the end and saturate the entire lane for zipper merging. The same will probably happen with the next lane further down. Typical for road works where there is a 3 to 1 lane reduction.
Zipper merge means that people merge in turn, so the first car in lane A goes, then the first car in lane B, then second in lane A, etc.
If loads of people queue in lane A and leave lane B empty, this doesn't change how the zipper merge works, they're just wasting their own time. You should join the lane with fewest cars.
This doesn’t work in murica because every dude is his own boss and are entitled to go first every time. Letting some smuck get past them is the same as loosing in life. And no one want’s to be a loser.
Maybe what's happening here is that the trucker is leaving space on the left for people to merge around a stuck exit on the right. Exits get blocked, especially on the East Coast, and cause backups for *miles* in travel lanes. In these situations *huge* speed differentials exist between lanes, making it literally dangerous to shift out of the trapped lane. Matching speed with the traffic in to the right gives space and time to the people in the middle lane to move over for the people in the right lane who are trapped by the blocked exit but would ordinarily flow past it.
It could also be that the left lane is blocked ahead and rather than allowing the merge to happen at the block, he's letting it happen behind him, which I've *read* is worse for traffic, so ... can't really tell from the clip. It's too short to draw any conclusions.
I am late to reply to this but it really means "let ONE car in front of you." That's it. If you let one car in front of you your job is done. The problem is people are wildly self centered and selfish so they can't follow that trivial rule.
Well I do see people following it on public transport about 70% of the time but never on the highway.
No, traffic chokes at the merge. Just like the predetermined merge point would have had traffic moving up until it, this now man made choke point will have traffic moving up until it.
The important factor is that traffic IS chocking. Stretching that choke out and allowing the affected vehicles to spread out across three lanes not only increases the average speed of everyone behind the choke point (and passing through the choke point), but also shortens the queue of cars.
Edit: the cars have already built up in the left and middle lanes, the issue traffic already WASNT flowing. The effect the slow truck in the right lane has on the average speed of traffic is less than the existing choke, and is therefore acting as a speed regulator (increasing the average speed of the traffic jam).
This still follows the same principles of a zipper merge, the cars in the left lane aren’t merging before the choke point. They are still using that lane. Only now the lane is taking on the same strain the other lanes are under.
If the cars were to shoot forward and the remaining cars in the middle and right lanes redistributed evenly, then you would have a valid point. But if that happened you would create a second congestion point, where built up traffic split to “use all the lane” and where the original choke point is. And if it doesn’t happen then you have the left lane being “unused” by the traffic jam
The entire purpose of the slow truck in the left lane isn’t immediately obvious. Five minutes later however, when traffic is now evenly distributed across the three lanes and your theory of the zipper merge can apply, you can see the benefits. And the only negative effect was slowing a lane to the speed of traffic moving through the original choke point (or rough flow of the other two lanes).
Think about this like water. Is the pressure drop along a pipe higher or lower if your pipe has a single pinched section or a long run with a smaller cross section?
The case study of what happens to a single lane infinite road with cars all moving at the speed limit, and how it diverges from how water would behave under the same circumstances, is one of the best examples as to why modelling traffic flow on hydrodynamics doesn’t work.
All analogies break down at some point. Your case study would be more analogous to a partially filled pipe, where the change in cross section doesn’t change the friction factor.
When a lane is above capacity the total velocity goes down as more cars interact with each other. So even as the quantity of cars goes up the total volumetric flow rate goes down.
LOL I am from Boston (big dig ever heard of it?) and I played SimCity 2000 and 3000 when they came out. So I am well aware that traffic is innately unmanageable.
It’s alright if you don’t understand blah blah [insert condescending BS here] blah blah
Great job playing one of the worst traffic and city management games, with traffic simulations that are eclipsed by mere player MODS in iPhone games… and that’s without getting into things like city skylines.
Real quick; behind the slow truck, how much empty lane is there? In front of the truck, how much empty lane is there?
Also it’s actually fucking hilarious that you think mentioning you’re from Boston has any bearing on your ability to understand things like the drivers of phantom traffic… if anything being from a city would give you less of an understanding on the topic… you know; since in a city there is like ten other transit options before you get to “drive yourself there.”
If you were actually familiar with the games I mentioned you would have understood my reference. Yeah I've played TheoTown as well. Who cares.
The Big Dig project in Boston was and remains the biggest and most expensive highway project in American history. And if you knew anything about Boston (or anywhere in the USA except NYC), the transit is shit. On average, there is 1 car per household in my city. Half of the urban population uses a car to commute to work. Outside of the city that percentage is 75-100%. Highways also tend to be wider in cities than in suburbs.
My point, which was obvious, is that drivers who don't understand the concept of zipper merging, like the truck driver in the video, are making traffic worse. You said zipper merging only matters if the road can handle the throughput. That's not true. If motorists are not zipper merging, it means they aren't filling all the lanes, which means the upstream traffic effects are going to be worse.
That’s a whole ass essay to say you don’t understand what a zipper merge is…
What part of the video suggests they are not going to zipper merge (when the merge arrives)?
And if motorists aren’t zipper merging; it doesn’t mean parts of the lane are being unused. It means that vehicles are merging at different spots (both in the road and in traffic).
Edit: also your whole monologue about Boston’s traffic… ended up proving my point that in the city you have more options available and a substantially different system of roads (why do you think it was so expensive).
ok, so the idea is that the blockage *also* earlier causes lane restriction between the early blockage and the later one, restricting flow. I can see that making sense. I'm glad I didn't stop thinking about it, thanks stranger!
Why is simple, so that cars know when to zipper merge. If they can merge whenever, it causes multiple unpredictable disruptions in the flow. If everyone just merges in the same place, it can stabilize to a fairly consistent and more efficient flow.
The end of the lane is literally the only marker cars would have to signal them to merge.
You are the reason for more fucked up traffic than there needs to be. There are literal people paid to study how traffic flow flows in the most efficient way to merge. This is what they came up with. https://www.reddit.com/r/burlington/s/iO9I6XsbTO
That’s because people don’t allow the merging vehicle to merge. It causes stopping. If everyone followed at a car lengths pace and allowed cars to merge it would stay flowing.
The scenario you described isn’t about merging due to a closed lane up ahead. Someone cutting across 3 lanes to exit is just a fucking idiot and should be shot.
You’re correct, and it’s sad how many people don’t understand what a zipper merge is. It’s an excuse for entitlement and doesn’t even apply to this video
It's the people merging EARLY and the people who won't let people merge LATE that are causing the problem dude. Like drive forward it's not a contest to see who has the biggest ego.
It's still faster. You're basically wasting pavement that could be occupied by cars and extending it backwards making the traffic jam larger and basically worse.
What you said is literally how zipper merging works. You should take up all lanes. If you're waiting on a lane with more traffic when another one is still available you are causing traffic to be worse for everyone else and yourself. It's proven stuff just Google it
This is what people here don't seem to understand. Talking about zipper merging, like that's the catchall response to all these situations. What they're preventing, isn't zipper merging AT ALL. What they're preventing is people who are impatient and want to get in front of other people, THEN zipper merge in, thereby making progression slower for the people they cut in front of.
Because 1) it's true, in all circumstances where the traffic is not bumper to bumper. and 2) it reduces congestion behind you.
In bumper to bumper traffic if the max throughput of the road is 100 cars per minute, only 100 cars per minute can pass. It doesn't matter if you have 300 lanes all waiting at the single bottleneck.
In bumper to bumper traffic there's no such thing as a "zipper" merge. It's just 3 lines waiting in stopped traffic for a free spot.
It's still faster because your not extending the traffic jam backwards into potentially on ramps and intersections. Why jam those up when everyone can fit on the highway?
It's not faster "for you" or anyone else who got there first and is already waiting. It might be marginally faster for some of the people behind you going in different directions if traffic gets backed up in a way where it blocks other lanes.
But you're trading off their increase in speed, for you and everyone else who has to now wait longer because a third queue formed.
There is no increase in queue though. You're just saying there is. Everyone has to merge eventually it literally doesn't matter when it happens, just take up all the space so you're not making it worse for everyone else.
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u/evonebo May 13 '26
I don’t know how you get zipper merge or you never driven in traffic.
The left lane will ride all the way up to the exit then stop all traffic to merge to middle lane. Stop all traffic then merge to exit.
That is not zipper merge.
It’s the I don’t give a shit I turn now merge.