Apparently, We’ve All Been Merging Wrong in Heavy Traffic [VIDEO]

Road officials are saying that we're all causing traffic jams because we don't know how to merge properly. I can't say that I agree with them, but what the hell do I know? They're road officials for a reason, I suppose.

I often complain about this very thing on long trips, as we always run into at least a few traffic jams. Traffic jams are annoyingly stupid, and would never happen if everyone just paid attention, unless there was an accident or something major. Almost every time, the culprit seems to be lane closures on the expressway, whether for construction or just regular transitions to fewer lanes. These areas are almost always well marked, and I've long been in the school of thought that when you see a lane ending warning sign -- you should merge as soon as possible. So that's what I do.

Unfortunately, that is usually followed by a traffic jam, and me yelling about how the people who wait until the last second to merge are idiots and how I hate them and how I want to punch their faces off and use super vulgar swear words that would would make my mother cry and yell "not my little boy" if she heard me say them... you know how you turn into a confrontational maniac when behind the wheel? Maybe that's just me.

According to road officials, what we should be employing in these situations is a technique called "zipper merging." The technique, explained in the video by folksy animated traffic cones, says that you should do the exact opposite of what I do. I don't agree with their method, and I don't think that most people would, but they claim that my method is the cause of backups, not the folks who wait to merge.

Who do you think is right here -- me or KDOT? Should we get over as early as we can, like polite forward thinking Samaritans, or should we wait until the absolute last second and try barge our way in front of the people who thought ahead, like a drunken frat boy who tries to plow through the line at a bar for another a round of Jager bombs at last call?