Australia’s Hatred of the Zipper Merge is Wrong
Australia hates the zipper merge, and it drives me crazy. It’s just wrong.
The unofficial driving policy on Australian roads is to be in the correct lane about three suburbs before you need to turn. If you are not already there, screw you! You are now a jerk, someone trying to cut in line, and are worthy of derision and horn honks.
My experience is mostly from Melbourne, but I’ve driven in other cities and know it’s Australian driving culture. Australians just seem to hate the “zipper merge” and think of people who merge anywhere but at the end as queue jumpers.
It’s not just me who thinks so.
- Australian Drivers Don’t Know How to Merge – Drive.com.au
- Reddit post of people ranting about it (there are many of these)
- Nobody knows the rules for merging – News.com.au
I think this is ridiculous. There are four main reasons I think expecting everyone to be in the correct lane way ahead of time is stupid.
- Not zipper merging wastes road, thus increasing congestion and slowing commutes.
- Not allowing merges punishes people from other suburbs or even from out of town for no logical reason.
- Getting angry at mergers is an illogical cause of road rage.
- It misdirects away from the real problem — bad infrastructure — and makes us angry at each other, rather than at the government.
The summary of all this is we should all be using the bloody road and zipper merging in at the end. Below is why.
The road is there. Why aren’t we using it?
The biggest problem with early lane selection is that it leaves perfectly usable road sitting empty. One lane becomes a long, miserable queue while the lane beside it remains mostly clear because everyone is expected to merge into the queue as soon as they can see the eventual road layout. This feels morally correct to the people waiting, but it’s not the most efficient way of moving traffic.
When two lanes eventually come together, the efficient approach is generally to use both lanes until the merge point, then take turns. This is called a “zipper merge”, and it’s the norm in most parts of the world. One car from the left, one car from the right. Nobody “wins” (squabbling over pennies, I call it) or “loses”. We just acknowledge that the road was designed with two lanes for a reason.
“Don’t Be From Here”
Melbourne already feels divided as a city, roughly into North, East, South/South East, and West, and this driving behavious is just one more way in which people can express xenophobia.
I drive all over. I might see a cheap dresser on Facebook Marketplace in Coburg or a bargain guitar in South Yarra. Google Maps helps mostly, but like most rational robots, it doesn’t tell me kilometres ahead to be in a certain lane. So when I try to merge, I get the cold shoulder.
Driving may be a membership club, but I paid my dues when I registered my car. It’s not my fault I don’t agree with your dumb rule about changing lanes as few times as possible — that’s not a law, that’s your preference, so don’t punish me over it.
Rage Against The Machine
So much anger on the roads is driver to driver — or driver to cyclist, or even cyclist to cyclist (can’t we all be friends?)
The real enemy is the government. Not literally — they’re trying to work for us — they just never seem to do so efficiently. Nor do the contractors. We pay taxes up the wazoo, but it gets lost in the system. We need to get angry at the right people.
The same goes for many social conflicts. Some people in government like us blaming foreigners for economic issues, when the real issue is finance policies that have driven housing prices out of reach of ordinary people. A million dollars for a house in bloody Rowville is so crazy it beggars belief, and that was 100% the government’s fault. The same goes for the crappy privatised train system, the long public hospital wait lists, and the fact that university degrees now cost tens of thousands of dollars.
So you know who to blame for the abomination that is our congested and expensive toll road system, the nightmare of commuting anywhere in Melbourne (a billion turns, random speed limit changes everywhere, tiny lanes, etc.) and the fact that it costs about $5-10K a year just for the privilege of driving in Melbourne. It’s not the Corolla that’s trying to merge; it’s your MP.
Melbourne’s infrastructure is the bigger problem
Here are a few words that would make any Melburnian commuter’s blood boil:
- Punt Road
- Monash Freeway
- Sydney Road
- Bell St
- Plenty Road
Not sure what the Sydney equivalents are — but at least Parramatta Road, the M4, and Spit Road, just to name a few I’ve had the misfortune of driving down.
People who have driven these at rush hour, during major events, when it has been raining or — heavens forbid — a conflagration of the three, know what it’s like to curse the heavens.
Driving in Melbourne sucks. It’s the one blemish on a city I otherwise adore. It’s why people tend to buy in the South East. Same goes for Sydney, roughly.
No merging policy can magically fix a road network that is over capacity. A zipper merge will not create another bridge, remove a bottleneck, or make a badly timed intersection suddenly intelligent. But when the road narrows, we should at least use the road we have properly. Making drivers queue early does not add capacity. It only spreads the congestion backward and gives us more time to be angry about it.
Wrap up
Easy solution: Zipper merge, like they do in the US or Europe. Start using the whole road. Match speeds, merge in, and don’t look back. You can wave thanks if you want, if you keep your eyes on the road.
We should already be doing this, but it’s going to take a cultural change.
Signs, road markings, driver education, and enforcement would all need to communicate the same thing: use both lanes, maintain a steady speed, and take turns at the merge point.
Here’s a great video showing it being done well with a sign in the US. “Merge here. Take turns.” So easy!
Of course, reading the comments, I don’t think things are perfect anywhere. But my experience of driving in Europe and the US is an acceptance that people can use the whole road and merge in at the last minute.
Australians need to stop treating early arrival in the correct lane as proof of superior citizenship. Someone merging ahead of you is not cheating. They are just using the road.
I am not expecting Melbourne to rebuild its entire road network next Tuesday. But we could start with a simple cultural change. It has to be part top-down, part bottom-up, and it is something you can can start doing today.
