dailymail.co.uk/news/article … perts.html
Apparently it’s better to go up the closed lane and merge in turn! Could have told them that years ago!
That’s how it’s suppose to be done but there’s always someone who likes to block off two lanes. Some more reading material for you …viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67533&hilit=Zip+merging#p844602
It’s a shame they’ve spoiled the article by using the phrase “drivers would be better off using both lanes for as long as possible”, which unfortunately will be interpreted by some people as meaning force your way over immediately before hitting the 10th cone 
Was the article sponsored by Robroy? [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH]
tachograph:
force your way over immediately before hitting the 10th cone[/i]
They don’t do that to barge in at the last second, they do that because that is literally the first time they’re aware of a lane closure. You see it on nights where they shut three of the four lanes of the M1 north of Nottingham leaving L4 open. They’ll continue dawdling along an almost deserted motorway in L2 past three overhead gantries warning of a lane closure including a couple with red X above the lanes, the 1 mile roadworks signs, the 8 big massive yellow lane closure signs and continue driving until the point that they cannot proceed in that lane any longer without knocking down cones and then its like “WTF, the lane is closed? How did that happen?” Every one else was in L4 at least a mile earlier.
bald bloke:
That’s how it’s suppose to be done but there’s always someone who likes to block off two lanes. Some more reading material for you …viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67533&hilit=Zip+merging#p844602
Ah, the classic zip merging thread of 2011; still one of my favourites.
Captain Caveman 76:
You are SUPPOSED to leave it to the last minute before pulling in to the inside lane at roadworks, say experts | Daily Mail OnlineApparently it’s better to go up the closed lane and merge in turn! Could have told them that years ago!
Not necessarily:- the first post by ROG in the aforementioned thread has it just right.
All very good, but the zip is buggered the moment you trap your ■■■■■■■■ in is! 
Sorry, I mean when you get bellends that doesn’t know what ‘in turn’ means…
And how many cars equal 1 artic■■?
I think I offended a fellow tipper driver in the quarry earlier this week. I saw him doing queue control on Monday morning on the A40, so at the first opportunity to speak to him I asked when did he become a special constable, assigned to traffic duties. I got a confused look and then a rant about how he was helping reduce congestion…by being a rolling roadblock 300 yards from the chevrons.
One of those drivers who’d rather argue why he doesn’t need to sheet his load when it’s quicker to just press the switch.
Christ! I bet CF is warming up his keyboard as we speak…
F-reds:
Christ! I bet CF is warming up his keyboard as we speak…
You mean like the inconvenient question how does the Daily Fail even know that it’s supposedly ‘better’ to send all the traffic up to the obstruction and then changing lanes at zip merging type speeds when they’ve all arrived at it,thereby actually causing the tail back. 
As opposed to putting the wicket signs and no overtaking signs out at a mile or more before the lane closure.So that all the traffic is in the correct lane/s long before the obstruction,without the need to then slow down to zip merging speeds when it gets there,because everyone is in the correct lane long before that point therefore no tail back to start with. 
When we haven’t even had the chance to see if the latter idea works.No surprise that anything which makes motorway journeys faster and less aggro would be seen as making road use more attractive which doesn’t suit the Daily Fail’s establishment agenda of war on the motorist.
Conor:
tachograph:
force your way over immediately before hitting the 10th cone[/i]They don’t do that to barge in at the last second, they do that because that is literally the first time they’re aware of a lane closure. You see it on nights where they shut three of the four lanes of the M1 north of Nottingham leaving L4 open. They’ll continue dawdling along an almost deserted motorway in L2 past three overhead gantries warning of a lane closure including a couple with red X above the lanes, the 1 mile roadworks signs, the 8 big massive yellow lane closure signs and continue driving until the point that they cannot proceed in that lane any longer without knocking down cones and then its like “WTF, the lane is closed? How did that happen?” Every one else was in L4 at least a mile earlier.
A couple of weeks ago I was approaching the point where everything had to merge into the outside lane. A 4x4 type vehicle had overtaken another vehicle and returned to lane 1 about 100 yards from the cones. Then had to swerve sharply to miss the cones. Yes, I face-palmed.
Snudger:
Not necessarily:- the first post by ROG in the aforementioned thread has it just right.
More like ROG is just taking the establishment line.The fact is it’s not about making journeys easier.It’s a form of unnecessary traffic calming to slow traffic down.Just like those screens and bushes they put up to remove vision at roundabouts thereby causing traffic to have to enter roundabouts at a crawl when the roundabout is plainly clear. 
Carryfast:
Just like those screens and bushes they put up to remove vision at roundabouts thereby causing traffic to have to enter roundabouts at a crawl when the roundabout is plainly clear.
Unfortunately the lower end of the driving scale have proven time and time again that approaching a roundabout at speed results in crashes as they are quite simply incapable of processing the information quickly enough when travelling at any faster than walking speed.
I agree with you that for a competent driver they are a proper PITA but we can only play the hand we’re dealt.
As a night driver I’m gonna have to agree with Conor. The average car driver doesn’t look much further than the end of their bonnet. Road signs ? You’re having a larf ain’t ya. You could put FREE MONEY BEER AND ■■■ at next junction and they’d sail straight past it. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen cones and flashing beacons splattered all over the motorway and I saw one earlier in the year that was so bad they had to close the motorway to reset the cones. Wasn’t just a few he clipped, wiped a whole stretch of them out.
The 800 yard signs are there for a reason. IMO, everyone should make an effort to get over once they go past this sign. This gives everyone half a mile to get into whatever lane is still open. Even at 50mph, trying to squeeze all traffic over to the open lane once past the 200 yard sign is always going to result in stopped traffic. I was on the M40 near Beaconsfield a few months back and even though it was the dead of night, 4 lanes and completely empty we still came to an almost standstill due to a few cars not looking where they’re going. A car undertook me through a Red X, cut in front then some numpty in front of him slammed on coz he wasn’t looking where he was going. I had to swerve into the 3rd lane towards the cones to avoid the car in front. If another clown had been undertaking me at the time I’d have side swiped them.
Not like events like this are one offs either.
I went from the A556 onto the southbound slip road onto the M6 a few weeks ago at about 1600hrs. Slow traffic, stop-start on the slip road and one lane down to two towards the bottom. It was staggering to see both the car in front and the one behind, almost as soon as they were into the bit where traffic coming around the roundabout that has no alternative other than to join the slip road in the second lane meets that coming from the Manchester direction, adopt the wannabe traffic police role of straddling both lanes to prevent anyone else coming past and no doubt pushing the queue back onto the roundabout.
Who these brain-dead, self-appointed enforcers think they are I have no idea.
Carryfast:
Snudger:
Not necessarily:- the first post by ROG in the aforementioned thread has it just right.More like ROG is just taking the establishment line.The fact is it’s not about making journeys easier.It’s a form of unnecessary traffic calming to slow traffic down.Just like those screens and bushes they put up to remove vision at roundabouts thereby causing traffic to have to enter roundabouts at a crawl when the roundabout is plainly clear.
Yes, those measures are quite annoying, unless you are tall enough to look over them, but if in the long term they force people overall to be safer and keep traffic moving (by not having accidents), then I suppose they must be worthwhile.
I didn’t know that was the establishment line - ah I see you meant the IAM. Well, they are supposed to be better drivers than the average and I agree with ROG’s thoughts on this. I thought it was the sensible things to in the circumstances to maintain progress (i.e. NOT slowing traffic down unnecessarily due to inappropriate merging where not necessary, and incidentally safer as well). It’s the really impatient who have to overtake only to brake to merge back in which can cause these little slowing-ups.
I quote someone’s post from that thread:-
“Which in practice means that by leaving it ‘until the last minute’ just means that everyone has to slow up to an eventual crawl to let all those idiots,who leave it until the last minute,merge safely.” Suggests to me that they believe that traffic should be in the one lane earlier which is essentially what ROG said to prevent bottlenecks.
Zip merging thread of 2016 is off and running.
Snudger:
Carryfast:
Snudger:
Not necessarily:- the first post by ROG in the aforementioned thread has it just right.More like ROG is just taking the establishment line.The fact is it’s not about making journeys easier.It’s a form of unnecessary traffic calming to slow traffic down.Just like those screens and bushes they put up to remove vision at roundabouts thereby causing traffic to have to enter roundabouts at a crawl when the roundabout is plainly clear.
Yes, those measures are quite annoying, unless you are tall enough to look over them, but if in the long term they force people overall to be safer and keep traffic moving (by not having accidents), then I suppose they must be worthwhile.
I didn’t know that was the establishment line - ah I see you meant the IAM. Well, they are supposed to be better drivers than the average and I agree with ROG’s thoughts on this. I thought it was the sensible things to in the circumstances to maintain progress (i.e. NOT slowing traffic down unnecessarily due to inappropriate merging where not necessary, and incidentally safer as well). It’s the really impatient who have to overtake only to brake to merge back in which can cause these little slowing-ups.
I quote someone’s post from that thread:-
“Which in practice means that by leaving it ‘until the last minute’ just means that everyone has to slow up to an eventual crawl to let all those idiots,who leave it until the last minute,merge safely.” Suggests to me that they believe that traffic should be in the one lane earlier which is essentially what ROG said to prevent bottlenecks.
Zip merging thread of 2016 is off and running.
If I’d read it right ROG’s comments were a contradiction in both recognising the easier and faster merging done further out.But then also supporting the zip merging idea done close to the obstruction in the event of a tail back.
When it’s clear that it’s those who want to leave the merging process until the final few metres that are the ‘cause’ of the tail back to start with.In which case adding to that won’t help.
Which leaves that inconvenient question.How can the Daily Fail and all the other zip merging at the obstruction supporters,say that the latter idea is supposedly better when the Highways Authority have never actually tried the idea of putting the wicket signs,together with no overtaking signs,out at a mile and the roadworks sign at 800 metres instead of vice versa ?.IE we need to know ‘which lanes are closed’ well ahead and in time to do something about it and well before we need to know ‘why’ they are closed.With it not being rocket science to know that it’s probably roadworks anyway.
On that note it’s got nothing to do with the issue of so called ‘zip merging’ which would automatically apply regardless because no overtaking by definition means everything should return to lane 1 and then change lanes according to the wicket signs in line and in turn.The difference being that can all be done at a higher speed at a mile away from the obstruction than at 800 yds or less. As for the muppets who can’t drive in that environment by ignoring the road signs and lane discipline.We’ve already got the answer to that in the form of cameras and tough penalties ‘if’ the establishment was interested in getting our motorways moving,as opposed to slowing them down.
Honked:
Was the article sponsored by Robroy?
Nah nowt to do with me bud. 
Actually it happened this morning.
I was on the A30 coming out of Redruth heading towards Bodmin. That stretch is always chokker up to the roundabout about 7 miles away, there is a stretch which goes into 2 lanes for about maybe a mile or so, with single lane going the other way westbound.
You guessed it …all traffic in lane 1, including at least 2 artics.
Now if they intended you to do that it would be single lane right through, I had 2 more drops on, a re.load, and 430 miles to drive home between then and tomorrow, so I thought ■■■■ it and passed the lot, with about half a dozen others joining me.
( Looked in my mirror and saw one of the self appointed traffic marshalls/artic driver pulling over to block lane 2.)
Cue Mr Gingo and his mates on here coming on telling me what a ■■■■ I am for doing it (couldn’t give a flying one btw) but all the signs in these situations saying ‘Merge in turn’ signifys what is deemed correct.
Carryfast:
When it’s clear that it’s those who want to leave the merging process until the final few metres that are the ‘cause’ of the tail back to start with.In which case adding to that won’t help.
I must admit, next time I see a tailback and start to weigh the pros and cons of a zip merge - knowing that Carryfast is against will be a big, big pro