I drive every day, on the 110 freeway in LA. I do my part by prioritizing my distance from the car in front ahead of me (ideally something like max(1 car-length per 10 MPH, 2 ft), in reality probably more like 1-car length per 15 MPH), which both ensures that I have the proper distance to stop my car, and reduces the need for me to use my brakes to control my speed (brakes = energy waste). It’s not super hard.
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That’s not blocking the box. Pulling into the intersection when you need to make a left turn is standard and expected behavior. If you do that, even if an opening in the oncoming traffic never appears, you will be able to make your turn when the light changes and oncoming traffic stops.
Blocking the box is when you are going straight through the intersection, but traffic is backed up from an obstacle ahead, leaving no room for you to leave the intersection. If the light changes while your car is stuck in the middle of the intersection, you will block cross traffic until people ahead of you manage to pull ahead.
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Ooopps. I get it now.
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My point is that everyone benefits when the soon-to-close lane stays full until it starts to narrow, rather than most people merging out of it at the earliest opportunity.
It looks like asshole behaviour when only a few do it, but the solution is not to maintain the appearance of virtue by not doing it.
And who’s getting cut off? If people merge as they should, someone lets me in and then I let someone else in, and so on.
ETA: Here are three of the many news reports on the topic over the last five years:
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Did anyone else notice that it was the same car in all of his examples?
Not saying this stuff doesn’t happen, but either he got behind a really shitty driver who did all of that in one trip, or this stuff was staged.
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Obviously. How long would you have to drive to find one really clear example?
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A couple of days, depending on how much video the dashcam can hold.
I’m not gonna blame him too much. Sifting through hours of dashcam footage would be a pain.
That’s the key part that seems to be commonly misunderstood: zipper merge is better in part because of the smooth merging (it also helps if the two lanes are traveling at the same speed, which helps make the merge smooth). Those who stop at the end of the closing lane and cut in are slowing traffic and creating a confusing and dangerous situation. I didn’t find any studies analyzing individual or split behavior, they seem to assume all cars will either early merge or zipper merge. This page seems to summarize some of the merging research: https://www.modot.org/workzones/ZipperMerge.htm and here’s a more detailed meta analysis: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2602&context=ktc_researchreports
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Actually, what you do is: everybody stays in their lane and matches speeds with the drivers in the other lane. And when you come to the choke point you do the zipper move, merging both lanes into one.
Don’t start bypassing the ‘slower’ lane. Just match speeds. You’ll find the drivers in the other lane more inclined to give you a little spot during the zipper because you were obviously not being a dickhead.
And all those cars behind you that you may feel thet you blocked? Well, they’re all matched up with the other lane as well, and that makes the zipper work best!
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That’s all fine where a critical mass of people embrace the zipper merge. When you don’t have that critical mass, it’s not uncommon to see a parking lot in one lane while the few using the other lane inevitably look like assholes. Not sure how matching speeds would help in that situation…
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Here’s the Italian version.
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Odd there’s no mention of the obviously texting driver. People going way too slow and weaving like they’re super drunk, suddenly accelerating to a speed that’s well in excess of the posted speed to rush to the next red light. Where they will resume their texting, miss that the light has turned green and is now causing people to honk their horns five cars back.
Put your damned phones down people.
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If you are going to use your blinker, for the love of god and all else that is holy, do it BEFORE you hit your breaks and start to turn. If you brake first, start turning, and then put on your blinker, it makes ZERO sense and does ZERO good! NONE. I’d rather you didn’t use your blinker at all.
The point of a blinker is to communicate your INTENTION to turn. NOT that you ARE turning.
I can’t tell you how often people do this and it makes me crazy.
(That being said, you don’t have to use your blinker if there is no one else around. No communication takes place without both a sender and a receiver.)
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Yes. Absolutely.
Oh my god, yes! That is my other biggest peeve. When you are turning left, pull 1/2 way into the intersection and then wait until the oncoming traffic clears. then go. That way you and one or two other cars can make that left. If you sit at the stop line the light is going to turn red on you (and the poor souls behind you) before you ever get to take that turn.
This is driver’s ed. 101.
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Yes! This!
Here you go:
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Although I agree in principle, in many urban settings it can look like there’s no one around to see your signal when in fact there is. Your turn signal can be useful information to pedestrians, for example, that you may not see if they aren’t in the intersection. And it’s just a good habit to have, so I almost always signal when there’s apparently nobody around – in which case it’s fine, there was nobody to see me look like an idiot.
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