The zipper merge -- new to me

New York/New Jersey drivers have decades of daily practice.

Despite a reputation for generally aggressive driving, I found that most drivers were good at it. The entries to the major tunnels and bridges generally involve several stacked zipper merges, putting 4 or 5 lanes into one, and for the most part the driving public does it exactly right.

 

In general, you can solve most driving problems by going a little bit slower so you have more options and everything is easier for most everyone that way.

And when it comes to the zipper, the driver who is a little bit slower in the head and resultingly slower with their driving compared to other cars usually offers plenty of room in front of them to make merging easy...

The opposite of this is the impatient narcissists who think the road in front of them is something to be just as protective of as the road their car is actually driving on... They don't understand the concept of sharing the road and think how quickly they get from point A to Point B is a competitive sport. These types of drivers can destroy any semblance of a zipper because it severely damages their ego if someone pulls in front of them.

If you'd like to see how awful these people are without having to risk your life behind the wheel head on over to https://reddit.com/r/idiotsincars where periodically one of these jerks will post their dash cam footage about how some "idiot" tried to cut them off. Then when you watch the footage it's clear that not only did the other driver have to merge in front of them out of necessity, but that they tried to speed up and close the gap to make it harder rather than easier for that person to merge. More often than you think this will cause an accident. And on reddit we usually do the traditional reply to these folks as: "Looks like the real idiot is the person who uploaded this video."

Of course good luck getting cops to go after these people for failing to yield... As far as I can tell most traffic laws are no longer enforced like they used to be when I was young. For many people stop signs are now considered optional if there's no vehicles around, especially the intersection in front of my house.

 

how about people who race down a near empty merge lane to get ahead of everyone else. different situation?

 

Is this about people or traffic management? I had thought it was the latter...

 

good question, can they be separated?

 

I spose... I mean I figured this thread was for discussing the merge method, uses, applicability etc.

We still have the vent thread for talk of ill-mannered drivers of all sorts.

A decision for the thread starter, I reckon.

 

"oregon drivers don't recognize the concept"

 

I do that often because there's always someone who's a bit slow and a gap opens up in front of them to safely merge. To be clear, that's not really an option in a major city with significant traffic, but in less populated areas late merging in front of someone who lives their life a bit too slow for others, makes enough room for me to merge without anyone getting upset with me.

 

I've only ever seen a zipper merge happen one time here in the Tampa area. It was beautiful!! My passenger and I were both amazed that there were so many sensible drivers in the same place at the same time.

 

Massachusetts, where traffic signals are mere suggestions...

 

In Texas we do it at 70mph sometimes. The real issue is when the main lane is stop and go or very slow and the disappearing right lane is moving well. Then its a high speed opportunity merge when someone to the left is reading Priuschat and does not realize two car lengths have opened up in front of them. That chap has left an "opportunity" ready to be exploited by the guy with really good regen and brake assist slowing power added by decades of realworld driver training. Scares the wife everytime but rarely gets a horn since every other car is carrying.

 

Great post! I'm working in Texas this week, so I got an extra chuckle. The guy who cut you off in the obvious rental car last night? Totally not me....

 

When I lived in Detroit, and especially when I still worked in the northwest suburbs and countercommuted, it was clear that the different freeways there have not only their own names but their own distinct personalities,

Getting on to southbound I-275, people are ok about merging, you'd just better hit 80 MPH on the ramp itself or no merging will happen.

Getting on to the westbound Ford (I-94) from the southbound Lodge (M-10), say, no one there believes in merging. Everyone on the ramp will rush right to the end of it and then stop, until everyone everywhere all at once has to stop, and then nose their way in, and the next person will do the exact same thing.

If you are pacing yourself down the ramp to make a proper zipper merge, someone behind you will blow around you *on the shoulder* to beat you to the front of the ramp and make sure that everyone stops.

My commute home after work was about 45 minutes and a third of it could be spent on that ramp.

I would sometimes try to pace myself down the ramp and be halfway on the shoulder to discourage that blowing around, but I was in a small car and it wasn't very effective. Someone would either blow around on the right or on the left, and then cause the traffic to stop.

Commercial truck drivers, now they understood. I was pacing myself down the ramp one day when some yahoo came blowing around me on the shoulder, and the tractor-trailer driver up ahead of me just pulled the rig directly across his path. People cheered.

 

Yeah... There's definitely personalities of drivers on certain roads... There's one interchange in Oakland, California while heading south just after the SF Bay bridge on the 880 that merging traffic from the slow lane has to be going faster than 70mph down a steep on ramp onto a super rough beat up stretch of road to safely zipper, even trucks... It's always been the most insane section of highway in SF Bay Area and every time they resurface it the road quickly falls apart again because of the high speed forces involved.

 

There's a reason that proponents of the zippier merge always show the perfectly-crafted computer-generated video of cars spaced out perfectly, and left (or right) lane cars merging in with zero reduction in speed. But in the real world, cars in the clear (but soon to be closed) lane, are going faster than the stop and go lane. As it turns out, the reason it's stop and go in one lane, is because those thinking about a zipper merge are jostling down the clear lane and suddenly turn their blinkers on. After awhile, brake lights go on, zipper mergers turn in, and now everyone is going 10 mph or less. The only way to get this coordination to work like computer videos is to start the merge a lot further back, way ahead of any lane closures. It's virtually impossible to get that many vehicles to keep a steady distance at a steady speed, while open lane drivers match that speed to merge.

 

Exactly ... like, back where the first, or even the second or third, warning sign was placed telling you that the lane was going to close.

And it works out quite well when enough of the drivers involved are that responsible, and it doesn't when they aren't.

As I mentioned in another post just above, I knew different interstates even within the same metro area that had whole different personalities about that. Drivers on I-94 there, for whatever reason, just never had the light bulb.

 

lol..yes those dash cam vidoes can be very interesting to watch...a lot of truckers post some of wild stuff they witness. I saw one, last night, where the roads were icy and a red car came zooming on the left (looked like he was going well over 65 mph) and tried to do a zippy NASCAR pass on the right and lost control, hit two cars then the center concrete wall....as the truck slowly drove past the carnage, you can see the red car had a SPARE TIRE DONUT on the rear-right side! Driving 70 mph, on ice, with a donut?? That's a whole notha level of stupid right there!
John Wayne was right, "Life is hard. It's harder when you're stupid"

 

I have seen truckers work together to make sure the zipper merge will work when a lane on the interstate is closed. I guess they are using their cb's to communicate and they will form a blockade 2 semis abreast of each other to block the selfish individuals who would try to pass and jump line. This allows the zipper to work and the forces the people to slow down and play by the rules. It does cause the frustrated line jumpers to sometimes do even more foolish behavior and that can be a negative consequence.

Our state has recently passed a law for video surveillance of construction zones to catch some of these inconsiderate drivers and prosecute them.

 

We just got back from Florida, so after driving 4,000 in a new car, got to see a lot. Like the giant parking lot I-95 becomes because of onramps. I took the EZPass lanes and flew by the parking lots for 30 miles at a clip.

Took our new Camry XLE AWD, no hybrids available at all, zero. At any rate, the manual suggests a break in period. YES, it needs it. After awhile, I noticed the mpg going steadily up, at any speed. We easily averaged 36-40 mpg on the highway at speeds 75 (and way beyond). Even a trip back through hills and mountains garnered 36 or so. Around town or rural (not city stop and go), netted a steady 28-30 mpg. Even back in cold country the trip computer (Highly accurate btw), shows 31 mpg. The EPA estimates on this car are for something off the lot, not broken in for sure.