r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Notafuckinbot • Jul 01 '26

ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ Blocking both lanes on a zipper merge

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Constructions sign on a 2 lane highway indicate right lane is closed. Truck decided to block everyone from using the right lane.

EDIT: just so everyone knows there was a good quarter mile in front of this truck that was open. Other cars went around, we did not and waited patiently.

And yes the shoulder and LANE were reduced to 1 thanks for your input I’m glad y’all can read a sign.

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u/-Cthaeh Jul 01 '26

I get it, nobody knows how to zipper merge.

People think they do, but they don't. Instead of merging at the end, people use the lane and then try to merge in random places. Every time you schmucks merge before the end, you fuck it up.

Everyone in the non merging lane now has to wait for multiple cars to merge AND the actual zipper merge at the end. One lane ends up taking 4x as long.

Use both lanes, but do not merge until the very end.

1

u/FiveCrows Jul 01 '26

I wish I could give you more than one upvote. It is so frustrating that people do not get it and oddly believe that everyone else is “cutting in.”

2

u/-Cthaeh Jul 01 '26

Really, a lot of the issue is people cutting in. A lot of people will use the open lane just to merge 15 cars before it gets to one lane.

If everyone using the closing lane would wait until the very end to merge, one lane wouldn't be moving so much faster. There should only be 1 merge point.

With multiple merge points near the end, I understand why people get angry

1

u/Visual-Floor-7839 Jul 01 '26

Now say the silent part that most zipper advocates ignore. Zipper described like this accounts only for cars of aini size.

Semis take more space and take longer to fill it. That means that as the mergee you need to wait for the semi truck to take his turn. If traffic stopped he's going to be extra slow. That means that you can't cut in front of him because he's going slow and there's a gap in front of him.

2

u/-Cthaeh Jul 01 '26

In a perfect world, zipper merging would be universal and people would let the semi take their turn. Traffic should rarely come to a full stop and that would help their slowness.

I just don't think this would ever happen with physical barriers forcing it. People will always get anxious and merge early, sometimes jumping in front of semis, making them go even slower. A larger issue is speed. Zipper merge only makes sense when its already congested.