Why Traffic Scientists Want You to Cut People Off

Video written by Adam Chase

[krazYFaic]

"The most efficient way to reduce traffic is for all cars to drive at a constant speed at a fixed distance from the car in front of them"... Like a train.

[joeym]

The problem with this is that it assumes people are good at merging lanes

[bm]

Honestly as a german, for the first port of the video I was "wtf, you abviously don't go into the left lane early, you have to do Reißverschluss, everyone knows that from driving school"

[katestewart]

Personally, having a "main" lane and a "merging" lane is the problem. use the cones on both sides of the merge so that the zipper isn't wonky, then no-one has right of way at the merge point and a decision has to be made, the easiest of which is to alternate.

[A-eowu]

In Germany we learn this in driving school.
Which absolutely doesn't mean people are doing it correctly here all the time...

[intrepid]

I remember reading a reddit comment years ago where this guy mentioned that he's only ever been a part of one proper zipper merge where everyone did it properly, and it was the most beautiful thing he's seen in his entire life.

[m__]

The most important point about the zipper merge - and where it tends to break down - is that everyone on the destination line has to yield to EXACTLY 1 other car. In particular, it suffers from too scared drivers who either merge early or yield to more than 1 merging car.

Btw, the complicated German term, Reissverschlussverfahren, is just the literal translation of "Zipper merge". Zipper = Reissverschluss.

[jubelet]

My idea is that the signage should not tell which lane is closed ahead. I actually saw this happen, although accidentally, when the crews either forgot to put a sign up, or it got knocked down. No one driving knew which lane to be in so both were used. It was a beautiful thing!

Another idea is to use orange cones to divide the two lanes so drivers can't merge until it's time.

[_Dearex_]

The Reißverschlussverfahren is quite nice, still a lot of drivers ignore it 😄

[rwrunning]

Imagine you're Jennifer Harms, watching this, and he freaking name drops you OUT OF NOWHERE.

[bobbybobman]

I find that I merge as late as I feel I can get away with, without totally pissing people off, because personally nothing in everyday driving is more beautiful than a long series of perfectly executed zipper merges ... And it honestly angers me when people don't just default to the zipper.

[Bigfoot_With_Internet_Access]

Luckily we bigfoots don't have to worry about traffic out here in the wilderness

[s]

Dang, you Rick rolled me with that website. Well done!

[MyNameIsAdam]

it's great that even 1 year after the video was posted you're keeping the website working

[mobilemister]

I've grown to accept the zipper merge. What gets me is 1) when tailgaters refuse to wait their turn and instead, force/bully their way in and 2) When people cut across a gore point in a LATE lane change (remember, gore points are where lanes split, not merge, so zipper merging wouldn't apply here).

[TheDinkelman]

'Reißverschlussverfahren' literally means zipper procedure and is pronounced: rice-fer-shloess-fer-fahren
(fer like in to confer, shlooss like shoes but with an L and fahren like in Fahrenheit).

Some German words are so long because they are actually compound words. You could also write "Reißverschluss-Verfahren". Even "Reiß-Verschluss" itself is a compound word.

[shanechurilla]

3:16

Did we just get rickrolled? That was the most subtly genius thing ever.

[AaronErfman]

One thing nobody ever seems to mention is where you should be driving if you are in the lane that is about to have to merge. If you keep your car located at a gap in the cars in the next lane and maintain that spot, maintaining the same speed at the merge, then it sets up the most smooth merge.
I'm a highway engineer, by the way.

[eier]

In Germany, you get honked at and are considered "cutting off" when you are *not* zipper merging.

Also, Reißverschlussverfahren is pronounced [ˌʁaɪsfɐʃlʊsfɐˈfaːrən], for the lads who don't think of IPA as a hipster beer

[bosfik]

That's the best rickroll I've ever seen. Well done Sam!