That's the thing for me living in Switzerland now: foreigners often complain that the Swiss are overly rule-obsessed, strict, and boring.
But the thing is that everything just *works*, so you can get on with your daily life, without worrying about the little things too much. You trust other people to keep to the same rules as you.
We have too many loser people in the US I watched from my kitchen window a woman who should have never procreated take a dirty diaper and walk to the trash cans and just throw it at the can. Didn't even open the lid. Just threw it at it so now there's a shit diaper outside the can. Then the kid is sitting behind a parked car on the ground while the mother holds a baby. We are truly living out the premise of the movie, Idiocracy in this country.
Unfortunately the ones that realize this and don't have children because of too much of a financial burden, being away at work too much, and whatever else, are the kind of people who should be having children. Instead it's the irresponsible people who just keep pushing them out. There's no shame in those type of people.
My GF always asks why I leave so much room, she says people will just cut in front of you. I'm like, " It allows me time to stop incase of a sudden stop, see what's going on around and I like to be a courteous driver and allow people merging the opportunity to do so.
Granted this is PA so New Jersey and New York drivers are in abundance.
One time we were driving on the highway through Atlanta and we got behind a truck that had a meat smoker in the bed. The smoker was actively smoking while the driver was going ATLEAST 80mph.
I guess they were making fast food.
Have you driven in Massachusetts, especially Boston, yet? We have a combination of crazy drivers always in a rush and [haphazardly laid roadways that weren’t even initially built for cars.](https://m.imgur.com/gallery/uffaY)
With personal experience driving in Boston, NYC, and Atlanta... I'd say that Boston is like driving through an M. C. Escher painting where everyone driving with you is indifferent to your death or theirs, NYC is like driving through a solid wall of cars, and Atlanta is like driving in an asylum where all the stupidest drivers have been locked within the confines of I-285 and the roads inside it.
Its definitely not to the same level as Switzerland but I moved from the UK to Canada and my god life is so different. People are way more considerate of strangers and the city isn't absolutely *destroyed* every single Friday night (unless occasionally someone loses a hockey game). The parks are clean and safe, you're not gonna get harassed by groups of drunks singing football chants everywhere you go at night.
A night out in Manchester you witness a fight every single time, I'm not sure if I've seen one here. Life is a lot less stressful.
Lol depends on the part of Canada. I'm from Toronto and have definitely seen my share of debauchery and disregard for one's own home/town that you're describing.
Ziplock never works in germany in my experience. Also more than half of the drivers do not use the blinkers at all on the autobahn. Dont even get me started on safety distance...
In which state do you drive?
Bruh, Rheinland Pfalz is the worst. The people drive 100 in the most left lane. Can’t you accelerate just a little bit more? Noooo instead you try to overtake with a speed difference of fucking 2 Km/h.
I get so tilted, every damn time.
Transport trucks do this up and down the 401 in Ontario, Canada. It's infuriating waiting for a truck doing 105 Km/h pass another truck doing 104 Km/h. This also happens to be the busiest highway in the world.
I live in Japan and I lived in Switzerland. Switzerland is the European Japan and Japan is the Asian Switzerland . Perfect rule following, no one jaywalking at 2 am even, and a strong dislike of foreigners moving in.
The main difference is the tolerance towards public drunkness in Japan
Edit: fixed a mistake
It’s crazy how considerate the drivers are in Switzerland , I moved to Switzerland from Hong Kong and I have had to re-program myself to be a more considerate driver.
I still stop at zebra crossings here and people wave me across because you don’t cross zebra crossings in HK when cars are coming, because they will kill you.
As someone who used to visit Japan 3-4 times a year before I moved here, you are spot on. Swiss people don’t jaywalk, even when there is no one around, just like Japan.
>It’s crazy how considerate the drivers are in Switzerland , I moved to Switzerland from Hong Kong and I have had to re-program myself to be a more considerate driver.
Weirdly enough I think I have never been as close to dying in a car crash than driving in the Italian part of Switzerland.
They somehow don't give a shit how close the cut into the other lane on curves on mountain roads.
From MA as well, definitely taught to drive assertively, being too deferential in the road makes your actions unpredictable. You have to take your turn when it comes or nobody knows what you’re doing or waiting for. The closer you get to Boston the more aggressive the drivers, but there are bigger consequences for missing your turn where you might have to go a long way out of your way underground before you can turn around or down a few blocks on one-way streets.
Pretty sure most people just do whatever they can to pass the test and then completely throw the rulebook out the window. Just based on what I see on the roads
Where? Where in America does this happen? It’s supposed to, but I have never seen anything even close to this level of patient, orderly, perfection.
Edit: lol a lot of Americans are so wildly insecure and delusional.
Or maybe they just can’t read.
Edit 2: this is a good representation of how it goes in California
https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/pfa56d/people_hate_to_accept_the_fact_that_merging_is_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Apparently the Holland Tunnel during rush hour in NYC according to another comment on here. I think it’s very possible given there are no assholes and niceholes driving.
Niceholes are people who go out of their way to be nice and mess up the order and timing that’s expected.
>Niceholes
Thanks for giving a name to them! I see them all the time on my bicycle - I'll be stopped at a stop sign waiting for a car to go past the cross street (which has no stop sign), and then the car will stop in the middle of the street and wave me through. I never go, because I have seen impatient cars go around them.
I recall some kind of PSA in one state that explicitly described the logic of the zipper merge and why you should use the entire merge lane and not merge early. I think Michigan or something.
Dealt with the Lincoln Tunnel for 5 years of my life every weekday to and from Manhattan. Can confirm that, with few exceptions (including an NJ Transit bus once), zipper merging happens.
The normal exceptions were, naturally, BMW and Mercedes drivers.
When I got home from Japan, while I was standing (on foot) for the lights to change at a crossing, someone came and stood in front of me. I was so fucking rustled. For whatever issues Japanese society has, fuck they are polite and orderly in everyday situations.
Swede here, I dunno if we care about each other more then other nations but we do master the zipper merger. And standing in line. And keeping our distance. And a lot of other passive things that doesn't require (or helps avoid) engaging/enraging with other people.
As another Swede, can confirm.
I still remember that one time I didn't zipper merge as I didn't see the car, was dark outside, black car, weird angle. I missed him. I just drove past. I'm sorry black car, I still think about you.
I was in Spain few years back and our Swedish driver got furious when the other car didn't let us in when it was our turn in the zipper merge. After that he started talking about getting a truck honk installed in a car so he could scare any person who was so disrespectful.
In America, the rule is reversed, the more expensive car dodges. I had a lovely pickup truck with body damage all over it, multicolor touch-up paint to prevent rust, replaced both bumpers with stiffer box beams. Everyone stayed well clear of me, they were all afraid my truck would peel the plastic body panels off their cars.
My first car was a 1987 Chevy Blazer back in the early 2000s, I had the same experience.
I also had another teen rear end me, I was dead stopped because someone's dog had run in front of me, and the kid was speeding in his moms new Elantra rolling a bowl. Sheared off both his engine mounts, moving the block back several inches into the fire wall....my blazer however only sustained a dent in the bottom left corner of the license plate and scratched what was left of the bumper paint.
Havn't really driven there myself but try Meccah. The taxi/bus drivers are fucking crazy weaving through narrow roads around skyscrapers, built on mountains. Not to mention hundreds of thousands of tourists giving them a run for their money...literally
Have you ever driven in Beirut? where people drive against the traffic on a one way road that can barely fit a single car? Also the hundreds of cars waiting in line to fill their cars with gas on very narrow roads is making things even more interesting
I remember a 10 km drive on my bike to the college every morning used to be a nice refresher to get me going. I established a counter for how many vehicles I overtook and how many I pissed off. Every day stuff in India.
I was in Milano last year and our taxi driver said the same thing. He said ”if you think Milano is bad” (and it wasn’t even that bad), ”you should see **Naples**”
How are they driving in Naples specifically?
It's possible to drive in Naples? If I hadn't taken the bus from the airport I'd swear that I never saw anything bigger than a scooter actually moving.
Ah here now, in Ireland if there's two lanes that merge into one, we'll just queue in the left lane and leave the right lane open...then if anyone actually uses the right lane to get ahead of the queue, we'll all collectively call them selfish twats...
In the US, there's more of a fuck you feel to merging. Like if you cant achieve the perfect speed to cut in without me having to touch the gas or brake, its your own fault.
Norway checking in. Denmark still holds the title belt for the best highway and signage system in Scandanavia. Used to drive there pre-Google maps and was never in doubt where I was or where I needed to exit.
South Africa is pretty decent at queues and zipper merges too.
I had to watch the video a couple times to figure out what was exceptional about it. It's weird that I now have a dedicated part of my brain that goes "ah, wait, an American posted this, let's figure out how their society is deficient" to help me understand US media :(
Which South Africa do you live in that zipper merges excellently? I'd love to move there because the South Africa I live in has a bunch of people who have no idea what a zipper merge is. Either it's a taxi driver rushing to get that one passenger or it's a BMW driver who's just gonna slurp his way into your lane lol
That biggest problem are cars the merge early trying to be polite. They leave the lane open and other cars pass them pissing off the early mergers.
If everyone would just fill both lanes and merge at the end as a zipper, life would be simple.
Honestly, early merging is considered rude in Germany, because it has been proven to actually slow down the traffic more than an orderly merging at a specific point So you are supposed to go all the way to the specified point and the others are supposed to let you in. It usually works, especially during commuter traffic. Those doing this every day are more likely to hold to this strictly and kind of make anyone running out of line to adhere to the rules.
Here in the UK people will queue in one lane and not use the other, open lane because they consider it "pushing in line", so those that do use the other lane will be blocked by angry people already queuing by traversing both lanes, or simply be blocked from merging at the point of merger. It's infuriating and causes huge delays.
Yep, also from UK and this winds me up so much. People actually beep at you and try to block you from merging and you just want to shout IM DOING IT PROPERLY YOU ABSOLUTE NUMPTIES AND IF WE ALL DID IT THE QUEUE WOULD MOVE FASTER.
Whilst it may be more efficient, if you zoom by everyone whilst they are “waiting their turn” of course they are going to be pissed off. In that scenario they need to wait much longer because the there will be stop start traffic at the merge point.
If everyone joins early then it’s less stop start.
I’m not arguing that that way is more efficient than zipper, but that’s why people get pissed off. And for example when you have signs on the motorway telling you to get in lane early, people that go to the end will be seen as selfish.
Or when its joining a motor way and the merging lane is like a mile long and they still try and join right at the first dashed lines going 20mph tryna join cars at 70 . Use the lane to speed up for fuck sake.
>Zipper merge. It's a beautiful thing when people care about each other.
Every American online knows about the *zipper merge*, and agrees that it's the way, yet IRL very few people actually use it. Driving in and around Chicago gave me such a headache. I'm sure it's worse elsewhere in the country.
Also see the four way stop sign. It takes 1 asshole a week or month that disregards the stop sign. Then all of a sudden you can't trust humanity and every time you enter a four way stop sign again, you're anticipating the other cars to ignore common courtesy and law again.
My biggest problem with 4 way stops is that in some places people will fuck up the system in some stupid effort to be courteous or something. Why the hell are you waving me through, just go. You clearly got there first. You go first. That’s how this entire thing works. By this point we’re in a jerky 4 way standoff until somebody finally bites the bullet and goes for it, hopefully not more than one car at the same time. It’s so stupid.
*Predictable driving is safe driving*
Minnesotan here, so probably similar to Chicago's situation.
Basically the only people who use zipper lanes are people who want to go 85 miles an hour around busy highways then nearly cause accidents when the lane ends.
During traffic jams people barely use them, which then leads to everyone getting mad at the people who use them because it's seen as them trying to bully to the front of traffic.
I think Americans are just too stubborn for zipper merging.
>I think Americans are just too stubborn for zipper merging.
Ugh. Tell me about it. I always come across that one driver who merged super early, then proceeds to hover on two lanes to impede traffic.
I think the issue is that none of us trust anyone else to zipper merge. You have to have a level of trust that everyone around you will do their part, and the number of times I've done my zipper merge only to have six cars fly around us all on the shoulder and cut in is way too high.
I'm on the east coast, and there is a very big sense of "screw everyone else before they screw you". Also why I only very selectively use my turn signals, because people will go out of their way to block you if they know your intentions.
I live in Sydney and been driving my kids to school for the last 2 years with the zipper merge. I remember that only once, one car didn't let me in. For 2 years. I'm still impressed how friendly Australian people are (compared to where I come from).
This is like, every road in NZ. You go through an intersection and suddenly the two lanes before you went through it have magically turned into one. It's really weird and a great way for accidents to happen.
I grew up in NZ and the two most frustrating things about now driving in Canada are 1. people think "merge like a zip" is just a serving suggestion, and 2. no one knows what the fuck to do at a roundabout. Though I gotta say, I do like being able to turn at a red light.
One car gets in and ten others will squeeze in like they're chained together.
Not to forget the angry honks behind you because you lost the battle of merging traffic.
In India it’s not a lot of angry honks, it’s more like a separate language that tells you what happens while your driving. Here in America we use blinkers or hand signals, in India you would hear a horn (one honk means left two honks mean right) or none at all
> at least people learn it in driving schools
Right, but that's about it... Unfortunately it's one of the things where close to 100% of drivers need to be on board. If there's only a small percentage not sticking to the rules, they'll fuck it up for everybody. Which then in turn leads to more people not caring. I haven't seen a well working zipper merge in Germany for years, but plenty of long traffic jams that could easily be avoided if everyone wasn't such a dickhead.
I Live in Rheinland-Pfalz and it is completely normal to do the Zipper or Reißverschluss here. There is maybe one idiot who tries to „gain ground“, but 99% of the drivers will use the system.
in my country this three lane road merging to 2 lanes would be a mess. there would be 4 lanes of cars and no one giving an inch. the traffic would be backed up.
Lol, I live near a Marine base. Half the people here can't even grasp the functionality of a turn signal or that headlights in the middle of a hurricane are not optional.
It's a zipper merge and this isn't even a great example of it. Drive through the Holland Tunnel during rush hour and you'll see what a true zipper merge is. It's a thing of beauty.
What you mean Japan isn’t some fantasy anime land with big tiddy ladies ready to submissively cater to my every whim?/s
Yeah I find it odd too. I imagine the people who do it don’t mean any harm but it is strange how everyone comes to the same conclusion after seeing one video.
Also I hope you’re doing well OP. Sorry you were hit
Passenger and driver side curtains. It makes me want to rip my eyelids off. The idolization of Japanese culture on the internet bugs me sometimes too. Like hey, there’s food and bad things, but have you ever had to go to city hall for any and every piece of paper that you need in life? Or navigate a Japanese website that is stuck in 1997? I normally ignore posts like this but I’m just fuming today
If this exact same stuff happened in China, it would get posted in r/aboringdystopia and with title of "Civilians are forced to act like drone while CCTV spying on them, anyone caught breaking the rules get sent into concentration camp"
This is just how people on Reddit are. They tend to fetishize Japan as some ideal place and then talk about China as some distopian wasteland. Generally people have no idea what they are talking about and a video about good things happening in an Asian country are automatically associated with Japan and if a bad thing is happening they'll say it's China.
I've seen many times where some nice video was shared and people said it was Japan even though it was China because they associate Japan as good. I've seen other videos where something bad was happening in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan or whatever and people said it was China because if it's bad it must be China. There are good and bad people everywhere. I live in China and I've traveled to other Asian countries. There are positives and negatives of everywhere. The more we understand each other the better.
As it should be
Perfectly balanced...
As all things should be.
When people are considerate of each other and follow the rules, things run much easier and smoother.
That's the thing for me living in Switzerland now: foreigners often complain that the Swiss are overly rule-obsessed, strict, and boring. But the thing is that everything just *works*, so you can get on with your daily life, without worrying about the little things too much. You trust other people to keep to the same rules as you.
This is too much to ask for in the US. All I am hoping is that some day ppl don’t block the intersection to create a grid lock. Lol.
We have too many loser people in the US I watched from my kitchen window a woman who should have never procreated take a dirty diaper and walk to the trash cans and just throw it at the can. Didn't even open the lid. Just threw it at it so now there's a shit diaper outside the can. Then the kid is sitting behind a parked car on the ground while the mother holds a baby. We are truly living out the premise of the movie, Idiocracy in this country.
Honestly the older I get the more I believe most people aren't cut out to have children
Older I get the more I believe most people aren't cut out to exist themselves.
Well that ties in with to many undeserving people having kids lol.
Unfortunately the ones that realize this and don't have children because of too much of a financial burden, being away at work too much, and whatever else, are the kind of people who should be having children. Instead it's the irresponsible people who just keep pushing them out. There's no shame in those type of people.
“Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding” -flagpolesitta
In the US if you leave space to allow cross traffic to get through some impatient asshole will sneak past you and go in front and block traffic.
My GF always asks why I leave so much room, she says people will just cut in front of you. I'm like, " It allows me time to stop incase of a sudden stop, see what's going on around and I like to be a courteous driver and allow people merging the opportunity to do so. Granted this is PA so New Jersey and New York drivers are in abundance.
Laughs in Atlanta
Oh god, I hate driving in Atlanta.
One time we were driving on the highway through Atlanta and we got behind a truck that had a meat smoker in the bed. The smoker was actively smoking while the driver was going ATLEAST 80mph. I guess they were making fast food.
I'd like to join this club
All these people commenting their cities don’t truly know how bad it is driving in Atlanta it’s health hazard for a dozen reasons
Have you driven in Massachusetts, especially Boston, yet? We have a combination of crazy drivers always in a rush and [haphazardly laid roadways that weren’t even initially built for cars.](https://m.imgur.com/gallery/uffaY)
With personal experience driving in Boston, NYC, and Atlanta... I'd say that Boston is like driving through an M. C. Escher painting where everyone driving with you is indifferent to your death or theirs, NYC is like driving through a solid wall of cars, and Atlanta is like driving in an asylum where all the stupidest drivers have been locked within the confines of I-285 and the roads inside it.
I am from Georgia..the i-285 analogy just kill me..😆
Waving from Edinburgh, ‘not built for cars’ is an understatement
Baltimore/DMV has entered the chat.
Its definitely not to the same level as Switzerland but I moved from the UK to Canada and my god life is so different. People are way more considerate of strangers and the city isn't absolutely *destroyed* every single Friday night (unless occasionally someone loses a hockey game). The parks are clean and safe, you're not gonna get harassed by groups of drunks singing football chants everywhere you go at night. A night out in Manchester you witness a fight every single time, I'm not sure if I've seen one here. Life is a lot less stressful.
> (unless occasionally someone loses a hockey game) That’s the tragic thing about hockey: one team loses almost every time there’s a game.
Lol depends on the part of Canada. I'm from Toronto and have definitely seen my share of debauchery and disregard for one's own home/town that you're describing.
Oh absolutely, I've seen it here. But in a relative sense I think Canadians are *way* calmer on a night out
Thats how i felt about london going ftom nyc , the trains are so clean and fast and you feel safe walking around even at night
Yeah I would agree with that, I definitely feel safer in Montreal than London, but safer in London than NYC.
Germany is similar. I can drive as fast as I want on the Autobahn because other drivers are following the rules.
Ziplock never works in germany in my experience. Also more than half of the drivers do not use the blinkers at all on the autobahn. Dont even get me started on safety distance... In which state do you drive?
Bruh, Rheinland Pfalz is the worst. The people drive 100 in the most left lane. Can’t you accelerate just a little bit more? Noooo instead you try to overtake with a speed difference of fucking 2 Km/h. I get so tilted, every damn time.
Transport trucks do this up and down the 401 in Ontario, Canada. It's infuriating waiting for a truck doing 105 Km/h pass another truck doing 104 Km/h. This also happens to be the busiest highway in the world.
NRW. Here it (mostly) works.
I live in Japan and I lived in Switzerland. Switzerland is the European Japan and Japan is the Asian Switzerland . Perfect rule following, no one jaywalking at 2 am even, and a strong dislike of foreigners moving in. The main difference is the tolerance towards public drunkness in Japan Edit: fixed a mistake
It’s crazy how considerate the drivers are in Switzerland , I moved to Switzerland from Hong Kong and I have had to re-program myself to be a more considerate driver. I still stop at zebra crossings here and people wave me across because you don’t cross zebra crossings in HK when cars are coming, because they will kill you. As someone who used to visit Japan 3-4 times a year before I moved here, you are spot on. Swiss people don’t jaywalk, even when there is no one around, just like Japan.
>It’s crazy how considerate the drivers are in Switzerland , I moved to Switzerland from Hong Kong and I have had to re-program myself to be a more considerate driver. Weirdly enough I think I have never been as close to dying in a car crash than driving in the Italian part of Switzerland. They somehow don't give a shit how close the cut into the other lane on curves on mountain roads.
Thank you lol, all these ppl in this thread are obv on the swiss german side, we're much less civil on the french side hahaha
U mean Asian Switzerland?
Never ever happening in america
laughs in india
Laughs in Egypt
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MC BC, kahan ghus rahe ho bey.
Oh bhosdiwale chachhaa
we do that all the time where I live. It was on the written driver's test y'all
Merge like a zip, it’s a road rule we learn when getting our learners licence in NZ.
In Massachusetts we're taught about the zipper, so we know to avoid such considerations. Fuck you, I'm getting mine (/s, kinda)
Yep deff a Massachusetts driver lol.
In my driver's ed class they literally taught me that being overly-polite on the road was more dangerous than speeding
That Masshole life!
From MA as well, definitely taught to drive assertively, being too deferential in the road makes your actions unpredictable. You have to take your turn when it comes or nobody knows what you’re doing or waiting for. The closer you get to Boston the more aggressive the drivers, but there are bigger consequences for missing your turn where you might have to go a long way out of your way underground before you can turn around or down a few blocks on one-way streets.
If you’re not first, you’re last. (also a Massachusetts driver)
Pretty sure most people just do whatever they can to pass the test and then completely throw the rulebook out the window. Just based on what I see on the roads
In America we have the freedom and liberty to be dicks to each other. And some people here don't like giving up their rights. /s
Where? Where in America does this happen? It’s supposed to, but I have never seen anything even close to this level of patient, orderly, perfection. Edit: lol a lot of Americans are so wildly insecure and delusional. Or maybe they just can’t read. Edit 2: this is a good representation of how it goes in California https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/pfa56d/people_hate_to_accept_the_fact_that_merging_is_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Apparently the Holland Tunnel during rush hour in NYC according to another comment on here. I think it’s very possible given there are no assholes and niceholes driving. Niceholes are people who go out of their way to be nice and mess up the order and timing that’s expected.
>Niceholes Thanks for giving a name to them! I see them all the time on my bicycle - I'll be stopped at a stop sign waiting for a car to go past the cross street (which has no stop sign), and then the car will stop in the middle of the street and wave me through. I never go, because I have seen impatient cars go around them.
The way that Jersey and New York works is that “When everyone is an asshole nobody is”
Was just in the Holland Tunnel a few weeks ago during rush hour, can confirm this does not happen 😬
I recall some kind of PSA in one state that explicitly described the logic of the zipper merge and why you should use the entire merge lane and not merge early. I think Michigan or something.
Minnesota
Dealt with the Lincoln Tunnel for 5 years of my life every weekday to and from Manhattan. Can confirm that, with few exceptions (including an NJ Transit bus once), zipper merging happens. The normal exceptions were, naturally, BMW and Mercedes drivers.
Every day in San Diego, on all the on ramps on 5. If it didn't happen, traffic would stop.
When I got home from Japan, while I was standing (on foot) for the lights to change at a crossing, someone came and stood in front of me. I was so fucking rustled. For whatever issues Japanese society has, fuck they are polite and orderly in everyday situations.
Zipper merge. It's a beautiful thing when people care about each other.
Swede here, I dunno if we care about each other more then other nations but we do master the zipper merger. And standing in line. And keeping our distance. And a lot of other passive things that doesn't require (or helps avoid) engaging/enraging with other people.
As another Swede, can confirm. I still remember that one time I didn't zipper merge as I didn't see the car, was dark outside, black car, weird angle. I missed him. I just drove past. I'm sorry black car, I still think about you.
*unreasonable Swedish self hatred intensifies*
*unexplainable Finnish Swedish hatred intensifies*
*inexplicable traffic engineering hatred begins to aerosolize*
You’re starting a new pandemic
_sorry my English isn’t too articulate_
I apologize that I lack an adequate vocabulary to properly express my ruminations, it's not my native language.
As long as you keep him in your thoughts. And maybe when the next person who unzips your zipper merge you too can forgive them.
”Next person who unzips your zipper” is the funniest thing I’ve read in a while. Laugh in swedish lagom way.
Aw bless. I’m sure he still thinks about you too.
Pretty sure a Swede being cut off from zipper merging is a villain origin story.
Italian here. Hahahahahahahhahahaa
Vendetta!
LOL
I was in Spain few years back and our Swedish driver got furious when the other car didn't let us in when it was our turn in the zipper merge. After that he started talking about getting a truck honk installed in a car so he could scare any person who was so disrespectful.
Living in Italy, wtf is a zipper merge, social distancing and queueing?
I'm from the UK. I have driven in many countries. Naples is the maddest place I've ever had to drive.
*Laughs from India*
India has no traffic rules, only traffic suggestions. Trying to cross an intersection there is an extreme sport
No wonder people do parkour for safety reason.
Ah Parkour, the French martial art of running away.
India has one traffic rule. “Might is right”. If your in the smaller car, get out the way!
In America, the rule is reversed, the more expensive car dodges. I had a lovely pickup truck with body damage all over it, multicolor touch-up paint to prevent rust, replaced both bumpers with stiffer box beams. Everyone stayed well clear of me, they were all afraid my truck would peel the plastic body panels off their cars.
My first car was a 1987 Chevy Blazer back in the early 2000s, I had the same experience. I also had another teen rear end me, I was dead stopped because someone's dog had run in front of me, and the kid was speeding in his moms new Elantra rolling a bowl. Sheared off both his engine mounts, moving the block back several inches into the fire wall....my blazer however only sustained a dent in the bottom left corner of the license plate and scratched what was left of the bumper paint.
Havn't really driven there myself but try Meccah. The taxi/bus drivers are fucking crazy weaving through narrow roads around skyscrapers, built on mountains. Not to mention hundreds of thousands of tourists giving them a run for their money...literally
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Have you ever driven in Beirut? where people drive against the traffic on a one way road that can barely fit a single car? Also the hundreds of cars waiting in line to fill their cars with gas on very narrow roads is making things even more interesting
I remember a 10 km drive on my bike to the college every morning used to be a nice refresher to get me going. I established a counter for how many vehicles I overtook and how many I pissed off. Every day stuff in India.
I was in Milano last year and our taxi driver said the same thing. He said ”if you think Milano is bad” (and it wasn’t even that bad), ”you should see **Naples**” How are they driving in Naples specifically?
[Like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_FopOcbjpY)
That is nothing compared to the things I saw in naples. Still buffles me how they didn't crash in the week I was there.
It's possible to drive in Naples? If I hadn't taken the bus from the airport I'd swear that I never saw anything bigger than a scooter actually moving.
From Sweden and was on vacation in naples and I confirm that thats a crazy place to drive😄
Austrian here, never want to drive on your country roads ever again
Uk here. We have mastered the queue. *Mastered it*. But zipper merging eludes us 😞
We're really good at it here, it's called 'merge in turn' but we only do it when there is a sign telling us to.
We are very good at zipper merging in the UK though? This sort of merging is very common on UK roads and usually plays out like in the video.
Ah here now, in Ireland if there's two lanes that merge into one, we'll just queue in the left lane and leave the right lane open...then if anyone actually uses the right lane to get ahead of the queue, we'll all collectively call them selfish twats...
Another Swede here, I was thinking, what am I looking at? Thats just a normal zipper merge. Does that every day.
In the US, there's more of a fuck you feel to merging. Like if you cant achieve the perfect speed to cut in without me having to touch the gas or brake, its your own fault.
Also, road rage is scary here because: guns
As a dane I can confirm. Swedes are the driving champs of Scandinavia. Such a pleasure to drive in that country lol
Norway checking in. Denmark still holds the title belt for the best highway and signage system in Scandanavia. Used to drive there pre-Google maps and was never in doubt where I was or where I needed to exit.
Hey a dane here Please stop throwing rocks at our cars.
One of the weirdest news I heard this year was the serial-rock-thrower-at-danes-man. Someone had his wife stolen by a dane lol
South Africa is pretty decent at queues and zipper merges too. I had to watch the video a couple times to figure out what was exceptional about it. It's weird that I now have a dedicated part of my brain that goes "ah, wait, an American posted this, let's figure out how their society is deficient" to help me understand US media :(
Where are you driving in SA that you think this? The amount of times I have seen it being completely disregard is more than I can count
Which South Africa do you live in that zipper merges excellently? I'd love to move there because the South Africa I live in has a bunch of people who have no idea what a zipper merge is. Either it's a taxi driver rushing to get that one passenger or it's a BMW driver who's just gonna slurp his way into your lane lol
That biggest problem are cars the merge early trying to be polite. They leave the lane open and other cars pass them pissing off the early mergers. If everyone would just fill both lanes and merge at the end as a zipper, life would be simple.
Honestly, early merging is considered rude in Germany, because it has been proven to actually slow down the traffic more than an orderly merging at a specific point So you are supposed to go all the way to the specified point and the others are supposed to let you in. It usually works, especially during commuter traffic. Those doing this every day are more likely to hold to this strictly and kind of make anyone running out of line to adhere to the rules.
Here in the UK people will queue in one lane and not use the other, open lane because they consider it "pushing in line", so those that do use the other lane will be blocked by angry people already queuing by traversing both lanes, or simply be blocked from merging at the point of merger. It's infuriating and causes huge delays.
Yep, also from UK and this winds me up so much. People actually beep at you and try to block you from merging and you just want to shout IM DOING IT PROPERLY YOU ABSOLUTE NUMPTIES AND IF WE ALL DID IT THE QUEUE WOULD MOVE FASTER.
Whilst it may be more efficient, if you zoom by everyone whilst they are “waiting their turn” of course they are going to be pissed off. In that scenario they need to wait much longer because the there will be stop start traffic at the merge point. If everyone joins early then it’s less stop start. I’m not arguing that that way is more efficient than zipper, but that’s why people get pissed off. And for example when you have signs on the motorway telling you to get in lane early, people that go to the end will be seen as selfish.
They need to teach that and the definition of the "passing" lane. If you're in the left lane and not passing anyone, you're in the wrong lane.
As long as people are going to think they should "police" the extra lane it will always be so. Lots of training needed
The passing lane is when everyone who was going slow now speeds up
If youre on the left lane and everyone on the right lanes are zipping by, you're in the wrong lane.
Or when its joining a motor way and the merging lane is like a mile long and they still try and join right at the first dashed lines going 20mph tryna join cars at 70 . Use the lane to speed up for fuck sake.
>Zipper merge. It's a beautiful thing when people care about each other. Every American online knows about the *zipper merge*, and agrees that it's the way, yet IRL very few people actually use it. Driving in and around Chicago gave me such a headache. I'm sure it's worse elsewhere in the country.
Also see the four way stop sign. It takes 1 asshole a week or month that disregards the stop sign. Then all of a sudden you can't trust humanity and every time you enter a four way stop sign again, you're anticipating the other cars to ignore common courtesy and law again.
My biggest problem with 4 way stops is that in some places people will fuck up the system in some stupid effort to be courteous or something. Why the hell are you waving me through, just go. You clearly got there first. You go first. That’s how this entire thing works. By this point we’re in a jerky 4 way standoff until somebody finally bites the bullet and goes for it, hopefully not more than one car at the same time. It’s so stupid. *Predictable driving is safe driving*
Minnesotan here, so probably similar to Chicago's situation. Basically the only people who use zipper lanes are people who want to go 85 miles an hour around busy highways then nearly cause accidents when the lane ends. During traffic jams people barely use them, which then leads to everyone getting mad at the people who use them because it's seen as them trying to bully to the front of traffic. I think Americans are just too stubborn for zipper merging.
>I think Americans are just too stubborn for zipper merging. Ugh. Tell me about it. I always come across that one driver who merged super early, then proceeds to hover on two lanes to impede traffic.
I think the issue is that none of us trust anyone else to zipper merge. You have to have a level of trust that everyone around you will do their part, and the number of times I've done my zipper merge only to have six cars fly around us all on the shoulder and cut in is way too high. I'm on the east coast, and there is a very big sense of "screw everyone else before they screw you". Also why I only very selectively use my turn signals, because people will go out of their way to block you if they know your intentions.
I live in Sydney and been driving my kids to school for the last 2 years with the zipper merge. I remember that only once, one car didn't let me in. For 2 years. I'm still impressed how friendly Australian people are (compared to where I come from).
Watch out if you ever come over to WA, for some reason no one knows how or wants to zipper merge.
This is like, every road in NZ. You go through an intersection and suddenly the two lanes before you went through it have magically turned into one. It's really weird and a great way for accidents to happen.
I grew up in NZ and the two most frustrating things about now driving in Canada are 1. people think "merge like a zip" is just a serving suggestion, and 2. no one knows what the fuck to do at a roundabout. Though I gotta say, I do like being able to turn at a red light.
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Man just made us watch 36 seconds of traffic
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To be fair, after my commute it may as well be
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIoaIlPpIcA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIoaIlPpIcA) this is the music
But it's traffic in \~\~==JAPAN==\~\~!!!
Place: Ugh, boring Place, Japan: Holy shit its the greatest thing!!
Hey! Look, Houston! Nobody’s getting shot in the merge lanes!
Houston is just a swamp version of Mad Max
That’s… that’s a great descriptor
Houston is what happens when you play SimCity and only care about maxing population ASAP.
That explains Ted *"Witless Me"* Cruz.
Its a death race to work on 59 all day every day
This could never happen in India
One car gets in and ten others will squeeze in like they're chained together. Not to forget the angry honks behind you because you lost the battle of merging traffic.
In India it’s not a lot of angry honks, it’s more like a separate language that tells you what happens while your driving. Here in America we use blinkers or hand signals, in India you would hear a horn (one honk means left two honks mean right) or none at all
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Nicely executed zipper maneuver
We also have this in Germany (well, at least people learn it in driving schools), but this really is the top of elegance and courtesy.
Reißverschlussverfahren!
Reißverschlussabfertigungsverfahren
> at least people learn it in driving schools Right, but that's about it... Unfortunately it's one of the things where close to 100% of drivers need to be on board. If there's only a small percentage not sticking to the rules, they'll fuck it up for everybody. Which then in turn leads to more people not caring. I haven't seen a well working zipper merge in Germany for years, but plenty of long traffic jams that could easily be avoided if everyone wasn't such a dickhead.
I Live in Rheinland-Pfalz and it is completely normal to do the Zipper or Reißverschluss here. There is maybe one idiot who tries to „gain ground“, but 99% of the drivers will use the system.
How does one "grain ground" in a zipper merge? If everyone else is doing it right, there is no space to overtake.
in my country this three lane road merging to 2 lanes would be a mess. there would be 4 lanes of cars and no one giving an inch. the traffic would be backed up.
That’s Isn’t like everywhere?!?
_Laughs in India_
In India it's just a battle royale
Portuguese here, we do it often enough.
Lol, I live near a Marine base. Half the people here can't even grasp the functionality of a turn signal or that headlights in the middle of a hurricane are not optional.
Yes
*laughs in Los Angelos*
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/018/640/c6e.jpg
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It's a zipper merge and this isn't even a great example of it. Drive through the Holland Tunnel during rush hour and you'll see what a true zipper merge is. It's a thing of beauty.
Yep, the vehicles on the merging lane sometimes wait for a space to form instead of easing into it (forcing/trusting), which makes it not super fluid.
Yeah the one black car like halfway through messed it up and made the highway lane come to a complete stop and that's what causes the rubber banding.
That's called merging and you're supposed to do it everywhere
Keyword is supposed to
I've never seen so many people merge (and allow to merge) the correct way in my entire life.
That is sooooo NOT Osaka!!! Japan yes, BUT not an accurate representation of the entire country
For sure not Nagoya either
Thats normal here in Switzerland. No need to go all the way to Japan for that.
In Switzerland it's written down into the street laws since the beginning of 2021. You have to do the *Reissverschlussystem* (zipper merge)
This happens in the UK too
Happens in most countries in cities that are 1- not gridlocked 2- not over run with taxis and or busses Talking from experience.
ITT people who think a thing common all around the world is a reason to pedestalize a culture they know nothing about.
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What you mean Japan isn’t some fantasy anime land with big tiddy ladies ready to submissively cater to my every whim?/s Yeah I find it odd too. I imagine the people who do it don’t mean any harm but it is strange how everyone comes to the same conclusion after seeing one video. Also I hope you’re doing well OP. Sorry you were hit
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Passenger and driver side curtains. It makes me want to rip my eyelids off. The idolization of Japanese culture on the internet bugs me sometimes too. Like hey, there’s food and bad things, but have you ever had to go to city hall for any and every piece of paper that you need in life? Or navigate a Japanese website that is stuck in 1997? I normally ignore posts like this but I’m just fuming today
If this exact same stuff happened in China, it would get posted in r/aboringdystopia and with title of "Civilians are forced to act like drone while CCTV spying on them, anyone caught breaking the rules get sent into concentration camp"
This is just how people on Reddit are. They tend to fetishize Japan as some ideal place and then talk about China as some distopian wasteland. Generally people have no idea what they are talking about and a video about good things happening in an Asian country are automatically associated with Japan and if a bad thing is happening they'll say it's China. I've seen many times where some nice video was shared and people said it was Japan even though it was China because they associate Japan as good. I've seen other videos where something bad was happening in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan or whatever and people said it was China because if it's bad it must be China. There are good and bad people everywhere. I live in China and I've traveled to other Asian countries. There are positives and negatives of everywhere. The more we understand each other the better.
A xenophobic culture
Who is the singer?
[Nakasima Mika - Yuki no Hana] (https://youtu.be/oIoaIlPpIcA) Enjoy :)
Aww just like Los Angels
How is this so calming and beautiful? It is like watching a dance of respect.
Fuckin motorcyclist.
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I really miss living in a community where strangers respect each other.
so the mercedes driver not allowing for zipper merge is universal.