1 00:00:00,470 --> 00:00:03,590 We’ve all been in this situation before: you’re driving home from the hospital after 2 00:00:03,590 --> 00:00:07,319 a grievous injury where a fan threw bricks at you as a joke, and you see that because 3 00:00:07,319 --> 00:00:11,370 of construction of a new McBurger Wendy’s, the right lane is about to end, and this two 4 00:00:11,370 --> 00:00:14,790 lane highway will be reduced to one measly lane. 5 00:00:14,790 --> 00:00:16,480 So, what do you do? 6 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:20,871 Well, being the morally upstanding, lawful good driver you are, you go ahead and merge 7 00:00:20,871 --> 00:00:25,119 into the left lane as soon as possible, and wait in line, listening to your own podcast 8 00:00:25,119 --> 00:00:26,939 Showmakers, available now on Nebula. 9 00:00:26,939 --> 00:00:30,419 But as you’re waiting in your slow queue, thinking about what a great point you’re 10 00:00:30,419 --> 00:00:35,380 making in the podcast, you see that some punk-faced jerk with slicked back hair in a hot-red sports 11 00:00:35,380 --> 00:00:37,730 car doesn’t merge over. 12 00:00:37,730 --> 00:00:41,920 He keeps driving in the right lane, and then right before the convergence point, merges 13 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,650 left, cutting in front of you and everyone else. 14 00:00:44,650 --> 00:00:47,040 What a jerk, right? 15 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:48,040 Wrong. 16 00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:52,950 What if I told you that “jerk” in the right lane… was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? 17 00:00:52,950 --> 00:00:55,520 Bet you’re regretting calling him a jerk now, huh? 18 00:00:55,520 --> 00:01:00,520 And what if I also told you that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t cut in line: he did 19 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:04,519 exactly what traffic experts say you’re supposed to do. 20 00:01:04,519 --> 00:01:08,430 It turns out, merging early is actually bad for traffic. 21 00:01:08,430 --> 00:01:12,240 It’s sort of like talking to your grandparents about politics––it may seem like the right 22 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:16,390 thing to do, but in the end, everyone just ends up angier and you get cut out of pop 23 00:01:16,390 --> 00:01:17,390 pop’s will. 24 00:01:17,390 --> 00:01:22,550 The reason is pretty simple: in dense traffic, if everyone merges early, they make the open 25 00:01:22,550 --> 00:01:28,080 lane unnecessarily clogged, while a long section of perfectly good road sits unused. 26 00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:32,700 Instead, traffic experts recommend something called the zipper merge: cars drive in both 27 00:01:32,700 --> 00:01:36,930 lanes up until the merge point, and then take turns going through it, closing like the teeth 28 00:01:36,930 --> 00:01:38,000 of a zipper. 29 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:42,110 Some experts say that adopting the zipper merge could actually reduce traffic by 40%, 30 00:01:42,110 --> 00:01:46,180 while other experts say that dolphins can swim up to 30 miles per hour. 31 00:01:46,180 --> 00:01:48,960 That second set of experts were dolphin experts. 32 00:01:48,960 --> 00:01:53,690 One real-world example of the problems a zipper merge could solve can be seen in Fort Collins, 33 00:01:53,690 --> 00:01:58,360 Colorado, at the intersection of Southbound Lemay Avenue and East Horsetooth Road, right 34 00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:02,299 next to the Warren Tennis Courts, Warren Lake, and the offices of an Allstate insurance agent 35 00:02:02,299 --> 00:02:03,810 named Jennifer Harms. 36 00:02:03,810 --> 00:02:08,379 There are two left turn lanes on Lemay, but here’s the thing: most people plan to only 37 00:02:08,379 --> 00:02:13,240 be on Horsetooth for a hot second, before they make a quick right turn back onto Lemay 38 00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:14,240 right here. 39 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:18,940 And because of that, all the cars tend to stack up on the inner turn lane, so then they’ll 40 00:02:18,940 --> 00:02:24,040 be in the right lane once they turn, and thus can easily make their right turn back onto 41 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:25,040 Lemay. 42 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:29,050 Basically, the number of cars who use the far left turn lane on South Lemay is the same 43 00:02:29,050 --> 00:02:31,700 as the number of cars I’ve been hit by: one blue Acura. 44 00:02:31,700 --> 00:02:35,890 And here’s the problem: because there’s always a really long line of cars in the inner 45 00:02:35,890 --> 00:02:39,580 turn lane, it takes longer for them all to pass through the light, which means the traffic 46 00:02:39,580 --> 00:02:43,270 lights have to be programmed to stay green longer to clear them all out, which means 47 00:02:43,270 --> 00:02:46,190 everyone at this intersection ultimately waits for longer. 48 00:02:46,190 --> 00:02:50,400 If drivers would instead evenly split themselves in the two turn lanes, and then zipper merge 49 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:54,580 into the right lane on Horsetooth, everyone would be better off. 50 00:02:54,580 --> 00:02:58,360 And that’s why the Colorado Department of Transportation has endorsed the zipper merge, 51 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:02,350 even putting an entire page on their website urging drivers to adopt it, including a video 52 00:03:02,350 --> 00:03:06,220 featuring the mean chef from Orange is the New Black and a child breaking labor laws. 53 00:03:06,220 --> 00:03:11,770 In 2011, Minnesota’s Department of Transportation ran an entire campaign urging drivers to adopt 54 00:03:11,770 --> 00:03:16,330 the zipper merge, including billboards, PSAs, YouTube videos, and even buying the domain 55 00:03:16,330 --> 00:03:20,000 name dothezippermerge.org, although they’ve since abandoned it and it might have a new 56 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:22,660 owner now whose name is definitely not me. 57 00:03:22,660 --> 00:03:28,140 In 2019, North Carolina even introduced a series of speed sensors and big light-up signs 58 00:03:28,140 --> 00:03:31,901 that would sense when there was upcoming congestion at a merge, and urge drivers to “USE BOTH 59 00:03:31,901 --> 00:03:33,760 LANES TO MERGE POINT, Y’ALL.” 60 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:37,970 In Germany, the zipper merge has been common practice for years, and they even have a long, 61 00:03:37,970 --> 00:03:42,920 confusing German word to prove it: Reisverschlussverfahren. 62 00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:45,330 But not all states have endorsed the zipper merge. 63 00:03:45,330 --> 00:03:49,680 And that’s because, like airport security, communism, and this joke about communism, 64 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:54,209 while it works great in theory, it doesn’t always work great in practice. 65 00:03:54,209 --> 00:03:59,010 And that’s because theory fails to take into account the human aspect of driving––specifically, 66 00:03:59,010 --> 00:04:00,900 our capacity for spite. 67 00:04:00,900 --> 00:04:04,980 You see, the zipper merge can sometimes fail when so-called “traffic vigilantes” see 68 00:04:04,980 --> 00:04:08,980 someone trying to do a late merge, and refuse to let them in, believing that the late merger 69 00:04:08,980 --> 00:04:12,879 is trying to cheat or cut the line, and that by refusing them entry, they’re doling out 70 00:04:12,879 --> 00:04:17,090 pure, cold, traffic justice, instead of what they’re actually doing, which is creating 71 00:04:17,090 --> 00:04:19,380 even more congestion and risk of crashes. 72 00:04:19,380 --> 00:04:23,720 The good news is, if humans don’t manage to figure it out soon, computers probably 73 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:27,090 will, at least if self-driving cars ever manage to be rolled out in the widespread way that 74 00:04:27,090 --> 00:04:30,070 experts have spent ten years saying is coming in the next three years. 75 00:04:30,070 --> 00:04:34,690 The most efficient way to reduce traffic is for all cars to drive at a constant speed 76 00:04:34,690 --> 00:04:39,090 at a fixed distance from the car in front of them, which falls pretty high on the list 77 00:04:39,090 --> 00:04:42,010 of things that humans are bad at, but computers are great at. 78 00:04:42,010 --> 00:04:45,930 Until then, though, now that you’ve watched this video, you can start merging at the last 79 00:04:45,930 --> 00:04:49,720 minute, and when people honk or yell at you, you can bask in the glory of knowing that 80 00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:54,220 a YouTube video told you that you’re right and they’re wrong. 81 00:04:54,220 --> 00:04:58,810 Now let’s say, fresh off of finishing this video, you start a guerrilla marketing/intimidation 82 00:04:58,810 --> 00:05:02,190 campaign getting people to use the zipper merge on your daily commute. 83 00:05:02,190 --> 00:05:05,390 Well, for that, you’d need some skills. 84 00:05:05,390 --> 00:05:08,470 For example, assuming you don’t want your banner to look like this, you’d want to 85 00:05:08,470 --> 00:05:13,040 learn some graphic design skills, and, of course, the best way to learn graphic design 86 00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:14,560 is from a graphic designer. 87 00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:17,410 That’s the 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