If you ’re sure-enough enough to force back , you ’re old enough to have some thoughts about the best way to merge into highway traffic when your lane is ending or close due to a wreck or road work . When you see the big , orangish " LANE close IN 1000 FT " star sign , you ’ve got a couple of choice :
To most masses , the first option seems more nice and patient — less selfish . Butstudyuponstudyproves the upstanding early - mergers among us are just make a single farsighted , slow line of dealings that ’s not only frustrating for driver , it ’s ineffective because it minimizes the amount of usable road — and it even make accident .
What we all should be doing is called the " zipper merge , " orReißverschlusssystem , as the Germans call it . In this system , every auto in the lane that ’s terminate drives all the way up to the front of the personal line of credit and get hold of turns merging with the other lane of dealings . ( From above , it looks a moment like tooth on a zipper coming together . ) Because the scheme use all the available route blank space for as long as possible , it cuts over-crowding by 40 percent . It also reduces crashes because all the dealings is moving at the same rate of upper rather than some cars going very fast while others poke along .
The job is , of course , our driving wont are bake in somewhat deep . It seems pushy and unjust to rush to the front of the line , so we all hold to spend hours in a individual , congested pedigree of traffic when there ’s a dead good lane right next to us we ’re afraid to utilise because somebody mightgive us the fingerbreadth . But some state are shell out cock-a-hoop bucks to actually retrain their drivers to habituate the zipper merge : ColoradoandMinnesotahave been working on it for more than a 10 , while Washington , Missouri andKansashave all endorsed the organization , and Missouri started its own education cause in 2016 .
Like all well - intentioned organization , though , the effective zip fastener merge requires that all drivers are on the same page , and when ’s the last time that happen ? We ’ll see if this efficient , good conflux technique can chance a place in our traffic habits , or , as Minnesota Radio’sBob Collins suggests , " The zipper merge is going to be this century ’s conversion to the metric system in the ' LXX . swell idea , made perfect mother wit , and was dead on reaching . "
