Oklahomans Have Been Doing It All Wrong – The Zipper Merge Debate Solved.

We've all been there, driving down the highway when you see one of the signs telling traffic to merge within the next mile, quarter mile or sooner. Depending on which Oklahoman you ask, you usually get two different answers as to when you SHOULD move over to the open lane. But, regardless of who you ask, there is a right and a wrong answer.

Oklahomans have a history of poor driving and road rage incidents. Maybe if there's a little refresher on one of the most common construction traffic rearrangements, then we can clear up some space on the roads and (hopefully) get 5 o'clock traffic on i44 north moving quicker than it has been.

In Oklahoma, when there is a driving lane, cars are to stay in both lanes up until the final merge point, then take turns merging into one lane. According to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, "the Zipper Merge makes full use of the available roadway and helps reduce a long lines of traffic backing up in a single lane while the adjacent lane sits unused."

@steinbach_online How to #ZipperMerge according to MPI #steinbach #construction #roadconstruction #SteinbachOnline ♬ original sound - SteinbachOnline

Those preventing the rest of traffic the ability to merge by riding the center of the lane are wrong.

We get it. It's irritating to have to let someone in when you feel like you've already done what you were supposed to by moving over to the single lane ahead of time. But drivers have to remember that the road isn't a speedway and this isn't a competition. What may seem like a small, insignificant moment of stopping someone from merging in front of you causes an incredibly annoying chain reaction.

For the last several weeks, traffic at the end of the zipper merge on i44, near the i62 exit towards Apache, Anadarko and Elgin, comes to a halt during the busiest traffic times. One of the biggest reasons traffic cannot move properly is because folks are not willing to allow drivers in the right lane to merge when they're supposed to at the final merge point.

Instead, traffic gets stalled for at least 15 minutes at a time and everyone is more frustrated with each other by the end.

Instead, let's all just drive defensively (the way we're supposed to be) and remember that at the end of the day, we're all just trying to go home - at the beginning of the day, we all just need to get to work.

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