Today on the I, Anonymous Blog, someone posted the following submission called “Brave Older Lady on I-84”:
Dear older lady in the little black car on I-84 this morning, I salute you. When we all knew that the left lane was closed ahead due to an accident (thanks DOT), we got over to the right. Many people feigned ignorance and went zipping by us in the left lane. Us right-laners sat, not moving AT ALL for a solid 17 minutes because all of the left-lane cars had to merge near the accident, where a third lane also joined the freeway. Then, we started to move. I looked in my rear view and a white RV had moved itself halfway in to the center lane, holding up lefty-lane traffic and allowing us on the right to move. Cars started squeezing by the RV and, a short while later, we were completely stopped again. That’s when you, brave and observant older lady, decided to take matters in to your own hands. You moved squarely in to the left lane. I kept your spot open for you on the right and you held up the left lane but kept pace with us until traffic cleared up. Because of you, change happened. You ignored the honks and impatience behind you and stood up for fairness and equality. Good. For. You.
I replied in the comments, but this is an issue for any Blogtownie that drives a car. (You cyclists can stand in the corner and smirk.) THE PEOPLE IN THIS STORY ARE BUTTHOLES. I’m no traffic expert, but I’ve read a fair amount about it, and that’s why I’m a staunch proponent of the “zipper merge.” The idea is to fill ALL lanes of traffic (all the way up to the merge point) and when two lanes become one, merge the lanes together (taking turns) like a zipper. You can also use the “bank line” analogy.
Why is the zipper merge the way to go? Here’s why. Not only does using all lanes keep the traffic flowing (check out the clogged two left lanes, and one empty right lane on SE MLK every day around 5 pm if you don’t believe me), but it’s the polite thing to do, and “reduces the overall length of traffic backup by as much as 40 percent.” Did the “brave lady” in the story above reduce congestion? NO. While she may have made life temporarily better for herself and everyone in front of her, she effectively screwed everyone who was traveling behind her. Thus, she was not “brave,” she was a “butthole.”
I briefly spoke to ODOT’s Don Hamilton, who refused to use the word “butthole,” but did agree that the woman in question was not using polite traffic etiquette, and caused “a potentially dangerous situation by blocking an active lane.” He also agreed with me that filling up all lanes and using “the zipper merge moves traffic along at the best pace” and is both the “most efficient and most polite methods of moving traffic.”
Still don’t believe me or expert Don Hamilton? Let’s hear from “zipper merge” enthusiast Jon Stewart (during a Daily Show interview with Drew Barrymore):
Jon Stewart: To me, the hallmark of civilization, and I believe this on its core foundational level, is the every-other-car merge at tunnels…
Drew Barrymore: Well, they don’t let you anymore, they have cones that say, like, don’t you dare.
Jon Stewart: No, no, when you get up to that, and it’s like four cars, and it goes down to one. And everybody suddenly, no matter what, Jew, Muslim, gay, straight, black, white, it doesn’t matter, everybody just goes, ‘I’m next,’ ‘No, you’re next,’ ‘Please,’ and it’s like the zipper merge, and it really says, to me, this is why we don’t drink the same water we shit in anymore, because we are a civilized society. That’s my theory. (via)
YOU HEARD IT FROM HIM, FOLKS. THE ZIPPER MERGE: LEARN IT! KNOW IT! LIVE IT!
More on the “zipper merge” here and here. And read this, too! And watch this.
The more time I spend in traffic, the more I realize that one kind (or, at the very least, non-aggressive) gesture can really have a ripple effect through the rest of the commute. People drive like dicks because other people drive like dicks — but if you respect the spirit of the rule, it works beautifully because people are more likely to be polite if they’re treated politely.
BTW, you can see the zipper-merge work at its finest at the eastbound Ross Island on-ramp at rush hour. One in every other car, and traffic flows perfectly — until some tail-gater messes everything up again.
In stop-and-go traffic, I also try to adhere to a modified version of this guy’s theory, which really does seem to work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFqfTCL2fs
I am angrier at this than anything ever written in this rag.
That’s because I regularly go east over the Fremont bridge around rush hour, and there is the left-hand, exit-only lane for SB I-5, and that’s to the left of the two northbound I-5 lanes.
Every single day, a drama plays out as several dozen a-holes use the sparse SB exit-only lane to try to skip the 5NB traffic that typically backs up across the bridge, and then force-wedge themselves into the I5 lanes at the last moment. Usually, the honest people in line see this happening for five minutes and then when they get to the neck, they move their cars over to block this “forced zipper” maneuver. I’m one of them, because fuck those people.
So zipper merging is one thing, and it’s obviously the best way to go when two lanes come together, or an onramp comes to an end in busy traffic.
However, we need to invent a “cunt”-level epithet for those people who deliberately cut the line and force themselves back into traffic. That includes people who wait until the last second to merge when a lane is closed for construction and warnings are posted for miles.
Also they should be crucified on the spot of their transgression as a warning to others.
The distinction is quite simple. If two lanes become one, do a zipper merge. If two lanes split to go in different directions (like on the Fremont bridge), and you use the wrong lane to cut the line, thereby holding up the traffic that actually wants to go that way, you should have your driving license revoked on the spot. And your eyesight. And your brain. And your family. And your cat.
Also, people who drive within three feet of the car in front can take a long walk off a short pier.
Steve is clearly out of Fleet enema bottles. Somebody do a Kickstarter for him.
The zipper-merge is proof that sometimes traffic engineers don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Shit that works in models doesn’t always work in real life.
The zipper model works if people aren’t total asshats and do the “polite” thing by clogging one lane up instead of using all lanes available. Also – thanks “polite” people who come to a dead stop with their blinkers on when merging onto the freeway. Hey ding dong we could all be moving forward if you followed the on-ramp to it’s logical conclusion and fucking zipper merged in. Yet more proof that Oregonian drivers are the worst. EVER.
The signage is the problem. The text and graphic on the signs show a lane closing (“Right Lane Ends”) and the other remaining open. That’s one lane of cars that gets to try, somehow, to wedge in, and the other that’s got their space and isn’t about to give it up.
To make the zipper theory work, the signs and the lane configuration needs to treat it like two lanes of equal status combining into one lane. Drivers will get it, and be more polite, when they’re entering “neutral” space than they are when someone else is trying to enter what they perceive as “their lane.”
See, members of the motoring public operate on a sort of canine level –they require clear, unambiguous commands to be happy. When dogs are on neutral turf at the dog park they get along with others just fine, but they get snappy at other dogs who try to enter their lane… err, their yard.
A swat with a rolled up newspaper is sometimes necessary.
Steve, if you know you have to merge soon, and you are rolling on by people who are already waiting in line, you are CUTTING THE LINE. Period! Fuck your ‘zipper merge’ excuse, you just want a free pass to the front of the line because you don’t want to wait like everyone else.
I don’t get Steve’s beef. Sounds like the woman was implementing the zipper merge. Regardless of whether the merger point is 20 cars ahead or 20 back, she’s still doing the same thing and just getting the two lanes to merge into one. In conclusion: Steve is just whining that he didn’t get to dickishly cut in front of 20 other cars.
@ Reymont
Dude, that lane is your lane too. Come on over! If you do, you won’t be so pissy when someone passes you in it. Stop thinking you’re being polite when you’re actually holding up traffic– getting in the empty lane is BEING POLITE TO EVERYONE.
@ Mike Tyson
If you get back into the lane too soon, you’re holding up the traffic who is doing the RIGHT thing by trying to zipper merge. Polite drivers go all the way up to the front, and wave nicely when you’re let in.
THE ZIPPER MERGE: LEARN IT. KNOW IT. LIVE IT!!
Guys, guys guys. Chill. We have a code to uphold, the one where the big voices in the community never, ever criticize another’s driving behavior. There’s no such thing as the enemy within.
Oh wait, sorry. Thought we were talking about bike riding.
This is a pointless debate we can afford to have here in Portland where there really isn’t anything other than slightly inconveniencing periodic traffic here in Oregon.
I just got back form the nightmarish Bay Area where most Freeways are rolling parking lots 75% of the time, there are no back roads, and “zipper merging” was something hippies experimented with in the 60’s.
Reymont: Is that on the left or the right across the pond? Do they zipper merge in Jolly Old England? Have you run into Matt Davis?
If Steve was so wrong, then why did they invent the stop go lights when coming onto the free way? its the same technique, the only difference is they make you actually stop at a light before getting on the freeway. If the douchebags in the fast lane would actually take turns then the fast lane wouldn’t be the fast lane eventually, and traffic would be moving at the same pace. Its math people.. it third grade fucking math for fuck sakes.
Steven is correct. Zipper merge is usually the proper protocol. Most Oregonians think it’s “cutting,” but really they are slowing traffic down by not filling both lanes and merging smoothly. I’m glad somebody has actually taken the time to write a “scientific” explanation for why this is the correct way to drive.
YOU GUYS. This is such a big argument up in St. Johns—the road to the bridge coming from downtown is notorious for a-hole lane-straddlers—that an entire FB group was created to hash it out.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5309554536…
Keep fighting the good fight. Also, as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized how people turn little annoyances into giant issues, and I’ve realized, sometimes, where I had been doing the same thing.
Yet at the same time society goes to shit and they don’t do much of anything. These may be related.
If you don’t like Steve merging late, here’s a question: is it possible to merge too early? If so, why?
Tom Vanderbilt’s excellent book “Traffic” starts off with a chapter on his conversion to “late merging.” It explains, very nicely, why Steve is absolutely right..
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/ch…