[master-lincoln]

In my experience there is no full stop if zipper merge is done right, but lots of angry people and a an inefficient use of the road leading to traffic jam miles before the merge needs to happen if people try to get into the one lane early.

If people all zip merge, there is no zooming possible on the closed lane and both lanes that merge get down to around 20mph at the choke point.

This only works in countries with civilized traffic participants as mentioned by OP. I have personally only seen 2 countries out of maybe 30 where that was the case. In cars many people behave like animals for some reason

[CrispyKerosene]

Even odder when it comes to behavior, in my experience people in my current city routinely fail at navigating a zipper merge without significantly reducing their speed, even coming to a full stop.

But when it comes to freeway on ramps, even in busy interchanges, there s usually no issues, which is odd because they are more or less the same maneuver.

There must be some psychological factors at play.

[practicemaths]

So that sounds like a massive flaw in traffic management design.

It's more efficient to develop traffic rules that work in how people are not how they should ideally be.

[CrispyKerosene]

Brawndo! it's what plants crave.

Where do you draw the line though when catering to the uniformed? There is a reason we hire SME's.

[practicemaths]

You design systems for the way nature works not how you wish nature worked ideally.

[master-lincoln]

And you think nature made drivers in some countries behave different to drivers in other countries?

[practicemaths]

Technically yes. Humans are biological creatures.

[CrispyKerosene]

Nature? we are talking about car infra here right?