Zipper Merge

How to Zipper Merge. It's the law.

From Zero Fatalities
A UDOT & DPS Program

[ritchie]

When your driving in the closing lane with blinker on to merge into the other lane and your a head of the vehicle on the open lane but that vehicle decides to speed up and not let you in and collide who is at fault?

[johnwick-iiil]

When two congested lanes become one ? Unless otherwise posted, the non-ending thru lane does not become anything. It stays exactly as it did before the other dead lane ended. It does not merge, and it's the ending lanes drivers who must merge into it it. The states with mandatory zipper merge for both lanes have to change their traffic code to reflect a shared liability by both lanes drivers. It can give drivers a false sense of entitlement when they drive in different states that dont mandate a zipper merge, and merely recommend it instead.

[williamfriar]

If it works, why doesn’t it work? Why are we still coming to a complete stop to let people get over out of the closed lane?

[williamfriar]

Zipper Merge
Comes from an older Latin phrase that means “get out of the open lane, because it’s moving too slowly, and into the closing lane so you can get ahead of several cars and then get back into the open lane.”

I use this tactic all the time and it works very well.

[TONY...GTB]

This is a crock of poop. Merge immediately upon discovering the lane is going to end because if you travel all the way to the end you have to STOP and wait for someone else to STOP to let you over. What happens to all the traffic that's in the travel lane that's behind the car or truck that stops to let you over? They have to stop too.

[RectitudeU]

IF, there’s no line of traffic waiting before the merge sign. If you don’t take your place in line and you zip to the front while everyone else is waiting, you’re a jerk.

[jackdonkey]

Terrible video, doesn't differentiate between normal merging and zipper merge. Sure you say take turns but it doesn't communicate that visually. The traffic should be at a stand still. Clearly someone said make a video, the video maker didn't understand and the person requesting it just went with it.

[kevintramell]

Guess I’m not moving to Utah. That is some goofy law. All that does is cause congestion. I’d like to see the study that proves a decrease in congestion by %40. I’m getting heated just thinking about this. All I can imagine is the one guy flying down the lane that we all know is closing and then cutting someone off at the last second. That is what causes the back up. If everyone merged miles ahead when they were warned nothing would go slowly.