What is the zipper?
Why it is important to respect the zipper technique
Final word
What is the zipper?
The “zipper” technique or method, as many people call it, is a civil way of merging and allowing people to merge onto a road or highway with a high density of traffic. Specifically, the zipper technique is when one car already in the lane being merged into allows one car, no more – no less, from the lane or road being merged from to get into the lane in front of them. The car behind them does the same and so on. It is always a one-one trade off.
It is called the “zipper” method because, from above, it resembles the teeth of a zipper. That also helps explains why it is always one car allowed in then the car that let them in continues behind. If one car does not let a car into the lane in question or more than one car merges in front of one car, the “zipper” breaks much like it would on a jacket. When a zipper breaks, it causes a multitude of issues both on a jacket and in traffic.
Why it is important to respect the zipper technique
It is important to respect and properly execute the zipper technique because the issues caused by a broken “zipper” of traffic are detrimental to every driver on that road, not just to those who failed to respect the zipper.
The worst and most common issue resulting from one or more drivers not properly participating in the zipper is slower moving traffic. This directly leads to even more congestion and considerably longer travel times. As you can see, everyone suffers, not just those who chose to try to out drive the zipper technique. It can also easily lead to fender benders which will obviously also further worsen a traffic jam. However, not respecting the zipper can easily also lead to road rage which can be extremely dangerous and get out of hand quite quickly.
Final word
The zipper method/technique is a fairly simple way of helping to civilly speed up the process of cars merging into a lane with a lot of slow-moving cars already in it. Properly executing this technique will decrease traffic congestion, decrease travel times on that road and will eliminate higher risks of both fender benders as well as road rage incidents. When you need any type of vehicle shipped to or from Alaska, it is as simple as giving our auto transport experts a call anytime at (907) 331-3100.
