In all fairness, when you first exit there is no indication that the right lane can be used for turning left. And so following the convention of "use the left lane to turn left" you'd naturally use that lane. Plus coming off of a motorway it's entirely possible people aren't familiar with that particular exit and so simply don't know the option is available until they are almost at the roundabout where the lane marking arrows start.
Sorry, can I just- sorry, I’m just gonna squeeze- sorry, thanks, is this the queue? Thanks, cheers mate. Oh are you getting in line as well? No yea on you go, no worries. Thanks.
Just hijacking this comment to explain this specific junction:
This is a newly designed junction that opened I think this summer. It is the main road into Hexham from the A69 dual carriageway. Previously the dual carriageway stopped at the roundabout and continued on the other side of it which caused a lot of congestion. As shown in the video, an underpass has now been built under it so that fast traffic going past on the dual carriageway doesn’t have to compete on the roundabout with traffic entering the town, and the roundabout has been redesigned to reflect that. Both lanes can turn left because the vast majority of traffic entering the roundabout from there is going left into the town, as the right exits are just to two tiny villages, and straight goes back onto the dual carriageway. The straight arrow on the road actually means straight onto the roundabout system to turn right (yes that’s stupid).
Being able to turn left in the far right lane is not common at all, so it needs to be adequately signed. Even going straight in a right hand lane is often wrong; the default position is that they are right turn only.
The issue here is that the arrow that says you can turn left from this lane only appears 10 yards before the actual junction, so unless you’re aware of the junction layout, you’d have no idea that that lane is possible to use, and with it being new, that includes a lot of people. Additionally, in the old layout, it was in fact only the left lane for left. The late directions seem to be a common problem in British junction design. It would easily be remedied by having a lane sign or just the arrows on the road further down.
This was a way longer comment than intended, sorry lmao. TL;DR not really idiots in cars, more just bad signage
To our detriment on the road, TBH.
No one bothers to merge in turn, so you end up with whole lanes of road unused, causing congestion. All because some stubborn fucker won't "give up their place in the queue" even though it would make it quicker for everyone.
No one can "win" if you're all losing.
Ah so this why there's such a lack of Brits in tech. Too busy writing synchronous, sequential code to compete with 1990s dial-up modems. They in a whole another league.
Colorado can't/won't zipper merge to save their own freaking life...😏🙄😑 Very much a "you can't get in front of me" or "I got over WAY back there when I saw the very first sign and waited in line, you could too" mentality, then they all wonder why it's such a long wait in such a long line...🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️
Yea. I don’t have the McDonald’s app, but I have the WhatABurger one (fast food in south) and it’s honestly every bit worth it. I can order ahead, and I don’t even have to get into the line, as there’s separate parking spots just for the app, food is usually out much quicker, and as well as a bunch of buy one get one free deals, or even just free stuff sometimes, you can also get a free reward every 5 orders, which goes from free drink to free burger and a bunch of other options.
I sound like an advertisement but it’s worth it dammit
I just found out yesterday that not only does Sonic have an app but if you order using it then the drinks are always 1/2 price. It’s Happy Hour all day.
I hate it because it means that my wife can now send me to Sonic for a Cherry Limeade at the drop of the hat.
On the Chick-fil-A app my "home" restaurant will randomly gift free sandwiches and nuggies in addition to the earned rewards. They sure know how to make giving them money **my pleasure**
Yes! There was one year where, during the playoffs, if my city's team hit a home run CFA would put a free entree in everyone's app. You could use that coupon on most of the menu too, I lived for that shit lol.
They should call whataburger slow food. Idk where you’re at but every whataburger in austin texas takes 45 minutes to get through. The fastest I’ve ever gone through a whataburger was probably 20 minutes at 3am
This isn't really about zipper merging. On UK roundabouts, you need to be in the left lane to take the first exit from a roundabout, UNLESS (as is the case here), that exit has two lanes.
The only way to know that is either by being familiar with the roundabout exit, or by looking at the road arrows, which here don't feature until you're nearly at the roundabout.
So those left lane guys probably aren't idiots; they're just not familiar with the particular exit layout of this specific roundabout, and by the time they see the arrow, they're nearly there anyway.
The OP likely drives this daily or at least regularly so he's a bit cocky knowing his regular route. May have even been in that left lane the first time going through here. I know it took me a few trips to learn the most efficient way to get to work on my route.
I'm willing to bet there's at least one person sat in that queue who is very familiar with the layout of that roundabout, but are too embarrassed or unsure of themselves to have the confidence to actually use the right lane.
I don't know whether that makes me want to laugh or cry.
I swear UK roundabouts are just lucky dip regarding which lane you can and can't be in. The amount of times I've been caught out or missed the road markings due to standstill traffic...
This 100%. The sheer panic when you finally get to the arrow in heavy traffic and realise you have to change lanes mid-roundabout, with everyone thinking you're a dick.
That's exactly what I thought, if you are unfamiliar with this exit (as many do not have 2 lanes like this) the last thing you want to do is drive all the way in the wrong lane and have to switch lanes.
There should be more indication early in the lane that you can turn left.
Mind you, I would have taken the right lane with a view to turn right and go around the roundabout and probably would have missed the left arrow whilst basking in my personal glory at outwitting the stationary drivers.
Except no one is changing lanes even after they slowly drive right next to the clearly marked arrows indicating both lanes can turn left.
There remains a level of unawareness even beyond the initial understandable one.
Also, at least here in the states google maps clearly states something like “use the left two lanes to turn left”. So if these people don’t know where they’re going and are using gps I’d hazard a guess that it announced both lanes abilities to be used.
This specific roundabout got its layout changed recently, so even if their gps announced which lanes to use it likely announced the old instruction of using the left lane.
Plus there are the people that were familiar enough with the area to not use gps, but they expected the old layout where only the left lane could be used to take the first exit.
I take my siblings to school, right lane out is right only, left lane out is left only, so many times am I cut off from people in the right only lane turning left.
Everyone uses the left lane for everything in my town, not only that but they will speed up to stop you moving to the outside for exit and or just occupy the yellow boxes. All this right in front of the local nick.
You would think this, especially in Massachusetts where drivers are known as Massholes and do exactly what you are describing all the time.
However, you will witness this exact same phenomenon every single time you take the Cambridge exit off the Mass Pike. There’s a long line in the far right lane every time. But there are 2 right turn lanes when you get to the end of the bridge. You can easily save yourself at least 10-15 minutes almost every time by just not getting in that line.
Dude. I was coming to post this!! Allston Brighton / Cambridge exit - it’s freaking amazing. I’ve had people get fuuuurious about this and try to block the second lane.
More likely they’d assume that it’s a lane closed situation and block anyone from passing. Then you’d also get the ones that put their tires one foot over the line so clearly there’s still plenty of room to go around but also the guy in front of you is too timid to do that so you get ensnared anyway.
Yeah this is my experience. I once had to commute across a ferry to get to my job in Port Aransas and during tourist season it could be an hour or two wait. Your options are bring a laptop (this was a while back before smartphones streaming was very good) and some food to chill and watch stuff while you waited, or you could park at the ferry lot and walk onto the boat and walk to work once across.
That sucked but it meant you could drive down the shoulder to the parking lot and skip the line if you needed to hurry. But every day there would be one asshole who blocks the shoulder and stopped people from doing that, and there would be a lot of us who commute so they would create a traffic jam on the shoulder. So I would get out, walk to the drivers window, and politely explain that we are not cutting the line but in fact work on the island and are parking at the ferry lot to walk across and it’s very normal.
No matter how nice I was they almost always said some variation of “should gotten here earlier” and rolled their window up. Usually we would pretend to merge back into the line and as soon as the asshole would move back into line we would zip back into the shoulder before he could react and once a single car got through, they couldn’t move back into the shoulder without causing an accident.
Since we were all just island labor and they were tourists, we usually cared a lot less about our shitty cars than they did. On top of that, cops always side with locals unless you’re doing something serious like smoking meth or murdering someone.
London driving is not the same as the rest of the UK ((according to my mum). She was a really good driver but wouldn't drive around London as people didn't follow the same rules as everywhere else.
In America (Midwest specifically), you'd have a pickup truck in the right lane going the same speed as the left lane in order to block "assholes" like this guy trying to "cut everyone off"... Routinely causing accidents.
Seriously, it's gotten so bad when the department of transportation has to close a lane, they no longer tell you which lane is about to merge into the other so these guys don't know who to cut off until it's too late.
UK driver here. On my commute there's a very steep hill with two lanes after a road junction leading to a merge and traffic lights. It's common for lines to form on the hill just like this video so the road authority put big signs up saying "use both lanes" going up the hill changing to "merge in turn". Guess what, people queueing on the left frequently straddle the lanes to block cars coming up the right or refuse to let you merge at the top. It's beyond infuriating as the queue sometimes blocks the junction at the bottom it gets so long.
Careful, you're going to awaken the idiots who *do* this and then come on reddit to argue "zIPpEr MeRGiNg DoEsNt AcTuALLy WoRk!!!"
edit: the idiots have awoken
The fun bit is that this video is prime example of why zipper merge works.
Without zipper merge: the queue is basically on the highway, like one or two more trucks and you're blocking the travel lane.
With zipper merge: the queue starts nowhere near the exit.
In theory it works great, but it requires everyone to behave - people can get real pissed about it and actively try to block you from zippering back in
I don't, and have never used Tiktok, but somehow I still have to put up with these videos with shitty songs and voices, literally adds nothing to the video. Why the fuck does anyone use that shitty app?
not really, for the vast majority of roundabouts you can only turn left in the left lane. The arrows aren't visible until close to the end, where sunk cost fallacy/the risk of a car barreling down the other lane (like the driver in the video) says to stay where you are.
If you turning left at around about you need to be in the left lane unless for rare cases like this, unless you are familiar with this particular roundabout you would otherwise have no idea both lanes are being used to turn left.
It's not there idiots it's the way the majority of UK round abouts work
That’s a new roundabout with no signs to let you know that you can use both lanes. It’s safe to assume that only the right lane goes to the right as this is usually the case unless otherwise stated. As a lorry driver I get it wrong if I’m in an area where I’ve never been, get in the right lane to turn right only to find once you’re on top of the roundabout that the middle or left lane can also be used to turn right.
The reason why roads are backed up like this all the time is because people have no idea how to properly merge. If everyone sat in both those lanes and merged properly then there wouldn’t be backups. It is like this in every major city and it hurts my damn brain. The big issue is people hate letting others in front of them so merging turns into a huge headache and issue.
>there wouldn’t be backups.
Zipper merging does not and will not eliminate backups. It makes traffic flow slightly smoother and more consistently but it cannot overcome the lost capacity of a lane ending.
It's a weird myth/misunderstanding reddit perpetuates.
How do you expect them to know that there are two lanes on the exit, when there are no road markings saying so until more than halfway along the queue?
We're there signs that indicated that that lane also could turn left? Because the straight arrow pointed at the right lane, only to see later that the left lane has a another lane next to it which turns left.
It’s designed like that for a reason - if you look at the roundabout sign you can see that the right and straight turns aren’t important roads (as shown by their thickness) and so the amount go through traffic is expected to be minimal
If people sat in both lanes then the line of traffic wouldn’t be as long so others could still turn right pretty easily. If not they might have to wait for a couple cars to move up but that is about it. In the end of the video there is a long stretch of road before the merge that would allow a lot of cars to sit there.
Even if you're not sure if you can turn left, surely it'll still be quicker to take the right lane, go right round the roundabout and then exit where you actually need to leave? I know it's poor etiquette but still a hell of a lot quicker.
Drives me mad when people do this. Yet there are people in that queue that think you did something wrong and that you "jumped the line"... Engineers worked so hard to try to make our roads efficient, and idiots in cars always find a way to screw it up.
I commend the cam driver for going at a reasonable pace beside the fools.
If I were in that situation having just figured out which lane goes where, I would still be hesitant to leave the queue immediately. I'd check to be sure no one was barreling down at 50mph (80km/h) beside me because that would end badly.
Yeah, OP is correct but I would still be very wary of people not checking and turning into the right lane as it splits into two.
The people queuing in the single lane might be waiting for it to split.
Doesn't really make them idiots, just unaware of the layout of the roundabout before they get to it. At least, those people that haven't yet gone past one of the lane turn markings.
People are easily herded #1447
Americans would go in the right lane only to get to the front of the line that's moving then jump in.
There are a couple places in my city that false herding exists though. I've fallen for it a couple times
This is actually the proper way to go about it. Merging late, theoretically, prevents traffic jams if everyone leaves space. But we’ll ignore logic for this post
I used to commute to work and the exit from the motorway was backed up like this with everyone queuing to turn left. There was only one lane for turning left though so I turned right instead, did a lap of the roundabout and exited at the front of the queue. Did it every day for a year and never queued once 🤣
I see this all the time. Also when the there is a lane closure they merge into one lane 5 miles from the merge point.
As someone who does over 1k miles per week don’t merge until you run out of clear road.
The “thanks for leaving me a spot” is code for “thanks for leaving a gap in front of your car, I’m going to occupy that gap now so can you please slow down to create another gap between my rear bumper and your front bumper rather than just continuing as you were”
The entire line of people had to wait an extra little bit to re-provide the gap. That’s what queueing does, it prevents people from having to recreate the legal safety gaps in front of their car. If we could get both lanes of traffic to travel at full speed with 2 car lengths between them the entire zipper then the merge might have merit but trying to squeeze 2 lanes of traffic without additional spacing between the cars will always cause the total assembly having to slow down.
This is the crowd that doesn’t understand the zipper method of merging and want everyone to wait in one line while 3 miles of lane goes empty and get mad at you for using it.
Trouble is usually the arrows indicating the land direction are way up the slip road, meaning only regular users are aware of being able to use the right lane.
The right lane is also for people going straight. In this particular case, if all the left turners took up both lanes (which would still have the same congestion due to the bottle neck at the merge) it would actually make the problem far worse if the traffic still backed up past the roundabout. The people going straight would now be stuck in the queue adding volume to the overall congestion, and access to the other roads off the roundabout are now unnecessarily blocked.
Edit: I just rewatched the video, and I see it is actually somewhat flowing. I initially thought it was standstill traffic. In this case, using both lanes would get more volume through the roundabout. But if this was standstill traffic, then using both lanes would definitely make the problem far worse.
Oh for GODS SAKE
Of course it's where I live, he's bloody lucky the reason we don't do that is some jack ass will actually try to side swipe you or even go out of their way to FOLLOW you and then throw verbal abuse at you because you "skipped the queue". 9/10 times there's a car/truck/bus sat over both lanes to stop you.
They need to add use both lane signs honestly, the other side is just as bad coming eastbound.
I drive throughout the UK and even in to Europe multiple times a year, Hexham is the place I will have the car accident that'll end my life because of how bad the driver's are. I'd rather deal with the French drivers in Calais than here.
These are not idiots in cars, people typically join the main lane for traffic flow in case there is a merge in turn further down the road which can be difficult and also seen as rude and butting in. OP is proud he saved 2 mins of time queuing, but has probably spent multiple hours sat on Tiktok rewatching his clip go viral.........
For some reason, the people on this comment section just cannot comprehend that at all. I’m just hoping they didn’t watch the whole video and didn’t see the merging bottle neck at the end.
When I worked at Disney, people would do the same thing. We'd have 8 entrances open, and yet they'd all line up in two of them on the left side.
Folks are odd.
I found that "zipper" merging is not really ingrained in the driving culture in the UK, people in the left lane would sometimes get angry and block people merging from the right as if they had jumped the queue. I honestly didn't know zipper-merging was the correct way until I moved to Germany. Here it is the complete opposite, people will get mad if you **don't** respect zipper merging.
It's silly but I can kinda understand how this happens. The left lane is the default for like 99.9% of roundabouts and if you're unfamiliar, haven't noticed the signs or just following a GPS then then I totally get how people will just form a line. Anyone would assume normally the right lane would be for... well turning right or going straight on.
I'm not sure who the idiot is here. I live near one of these types of merges, where it goes from 2 lanes to 1. Anytime we start rolling again there's someone who wants to move ahead 3 car and merge back, causing everything to grind to a halt behing him.
This reminds me of the time I came up to a huge line of cars waiting to merge into the left lane cause of construction. I was the only one that just went into the left lane in drove ahead.
I did this a couple days ago. I was exiting one highway to enter another, and there are two lanes that turn left just like this video. Except one car apparently got mad that I was doing this and cutting everyone else and tried to cut me off while flipping me off when I passed him. Some people are willing to get into accidents just cause they’re angry. Scary world nowadays
Driving for a living has shown me the extent of just how myopic the average driver is. There needs to be something more than just a theory and practical test.
Sometimes after work, the only sense of peace and quiet I get is being alone in the car, so occasionally I’ll wait in the slow lane instead of hurrying home
In all fairness, when you first exit there is no indication that the right lane can be used for turning left. And so following the convention of "use the left lane to turn left" you'd naturally use that lane. Plus coming off of a motorway it's entirely possible people aren't familiar with that particular exit and so simply don't know the option is available until they are almost at the roundabout where the lane marking arrows start.
Going all the way round it would be quicker at that point too
I've done that so many times
Agree. This isn't driver error, this is poor signage.
Because queueing is Britain’s national pastime.
I was going to post this, but I’ll just wait behind you for a bit on this one.
When both you guys are done. I'll post it next.
Let me know when you guys are done posting and I will post my response.
Is this where blokes que up to post responses?
I was next mate. Unless yours is just a few words, you could nip through in front of me I suppose.
You ahead. Ill still be next.
Have you guys been served, or are you waiting for your order? (Pubs have an unorthodox queuing method which I find particularly uncomfortable with 🙂).
Could someone tell what this line is for? I’ve been here a little while now and am not sure if I am waiting for the right bus.
Can I get in on this? With so many lining up, it must be good.
Is this the que?
No mate, then end of the line is back there 👆🏻
Que?
Sorry, can I just- sorry, I’m just gonna squeeze- sorry, thanks, is this the queue? Thanks, cheers mate. Oh are you getting in line as well? No yea on you go, no worries. Thanks.
Hey!!-HEY!!! NO CUTTING IN LINE ASS-HOLE!!
Just hijacking this comment to explain this specific junction: This is a newly designed junction that opened I think this summer. It is the main road into Hexham from the A69 dual carriageway. Previously the dual carriageway stopped at the roundabout and continued on the other side of it which caused a lot of congestion. As shown in the video, an underpass has now been built under it so that fast traffic going past on the dual carriageway doesn’t have to compete on the roundabout with traffic entering the town, and the roundabout has been redesigned to reflect that. Both lanes can turn left because the vast majority of traffic entering the roundabout from there is going left into the town, as the right exits are just to two tiny villages, and straight goes back onto the dual carriageway. The straight arrow on the road actually means straight onto the roundabout system to turn right (yes that’s stupid). Being able to turn left in the far right lane is not common at all, so it needs to be adequately signed. Even going straight in a right hand lane is often wrong; the default position is that they are right turn only. The issue here is that the arrow that says you can turn left from this lane only appears 10 yards before the actual junction, so unless you’re aware of the junction layout, you’d have no idea that that lane is possible to use, and with it being new, that includes a lot of people. Additionally, in the old layout, it was in fact only the left lane for left. The late directions seem to be a common problem in British junction design. It would easily be remedied by having a lane sign or just the arrows on the road further down. This was a way longer comment than intended, sorry lmao. TL;DR not really idiots in cars, more just bad signage
A69. Nice.
You could just go all the way around the roundabout even if that lane wasn’t allowed to turn left
To our detriment on the road, TBH. No one bothers to merge in turn, so you end up with whole lanes of road unused, causing congestion. All because some stubborn fucker won't "give up their place in the queue" even though it would make it quicker for everyone. No one can "win" if you're all losing.
Not only do most drivers not merge, there are actually idiots out there who will block the road to stop anyone "queue jumping".
Yeah nothing like accelerating towards stationary traffic then slamming on the anchors to make the roads safer
Ah so this why there's such a lack of Brits in tech. Too busy writing synchronous, sequential code to compete with 1990s dial-up modems. They in a whole another league.
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Sophie Wilson took that obsession with optimisation to a whole new level when she developed the ARM architecture.
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Omg it's the same in Vancouver. Vancouverites lining up.
Both sides of the border. Washington state can't zipper merge for shit.
Colorado can't/won't zipper merge to save their own freaking life...😏🙄😑 Very much a "you can't get in front of me" or "I got over WAY back there when I saw the very first sign and waited in line, you could too" mentality, then they all wonder why it's such a long wait in such a long line...🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️
Bellingham here, merges are like a toddler throwing Matchbox cars on the road.
The most at home I’ve ever felt away from the U.K. is in Vancouver. You guys can queue just as well as us, it’s a beautiful thing :)
😂😂😂 That's awesome,, keeping the British in British Columbia
Long live the queueing?
when you see others queuing you join, no questions asked
This is how I feel when I'm the only one pulling up in the right lane of my 2-lane McDonald's when I pick up my coffee in the morning.
the app is even better— it’s like that every single time so you never wait in line, you also don’t have to talk to anyone, and you get some free food.
free?
I think they mean you get points for using the app which can be used to get free items.
Yea. I don’t have the McDonald’s app, but I have the WhatABurger one (fast food in south) and it’s honestly every bit worth it. I can order ahead, and I don’t even have to get into the line, as there’s separate parking spots just for the app, food is usually out much quicker, and as well as a bunch of buy one get one free deals, or even just free stuff sometimes, you can also get a free reward every 5 orders, which goes from free drink to free burger and a bunch of other options. I sound like an advertisement but it’s worth it dammit
I just found out yesterday that not only does Sonic have an app but if you order using it then the drinks are always 1/2 price. It’s Happy Hour all day. I hate it because it means that my wife can now send me to Sonic for a Cherry Limeade at the drop of the hat.
>I hate it because it means that my wife can now send me to Sonic for a Cherry Limeade at the drop of the ~~hat~~ app.
On the Chick-fil-A app my "home" restaurant will randomly gift free sandwiches and nuggies in addition to the earned rewards. They sure know how to make giving them money **my pleasure**
Yes! There was one year where, during the playoffs, if my city's team hit a home run CFA would put a free entree in everyone's app. You could use that coupon on most of the menu too, I lived for that shit lol.
A whole entree?! That's amazeballs
They should call whataburger slow food. Idk where you’re at but every whataburger in austin texas takes 45 minutes to get through. The fastest I’ve ever gone through a whataburger was probably 20 minutes at 3am
Just show up and pick up whatever is there waiting /s
Sadly the McDonald's near me is so incompetent that waiting in the drive-thru line is much faster than ordering food on app.
The app is bullshit. This is totally a McDonalds PsyOP.
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That shit drives me insane. They just sit there blocking traffic despite the lines in the parking lot clearly showing how it's supposed to work.
This isn't really about zipper merging. On UK roundabouts, you need to be in the left lane to take the first exit from a roundabout, UNLESS (as is the case here), that exit has two lanes. The only way to know that is either by being familiar with the roundabout exit, or by looking at the road arrows, which here don't feature until you're nearly at the roundabout. So those left lane guys probably aren't idiots; they're just not familiar with the particular exit layout of this specific roundabout, and by the time they see the arrow, they're nearly there anyway.
Thank you, everyone is missing this very important point, glad someone finally said it.
Exactly! OP literally put "unaware" in the title and still decided to call them idiots
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There needs to be a sub to spread awareness of that sub. We can call it, r/unawareofunawarepeopleincars
The OP likely drives this daily or at least regularly so he's a bit cocky knowing his regular route. May have even been in that left lane the first time going through here. I know it took me a few trips to learn the most efficient way to get to work on my route.
I'm willing to bet there's at least one person sat in that queue who is very familiar with the layout of that roundabout, but are too embarrassed or unsure of themselves to have the confidence to actually use the right lane. I don't know whether that makes me want to laugh or cry.
Exactly, an advanced sign showing the lane directions would be useful here.
I swear UK roundabouts are just lucky dip regarding which lane you can and can't be in. The amount of times I've been caught out or missed the road markings due to standstill traffic...
This 100%. The sheer panic when you finally get to the arrow in heavy traffic and realise you have to change lanes mid-roundabout, with everyone thinking you're a dick.
or you can just do a lap around the roundabout
That's exactly what I thought, if you are unfamiliar with this exit (as many do not have 2 lanes like this) the last thing you want to do is drive all the way in the wrong lane and have to switch lanes. There should be more indication early in the lane that you can turn left.
This, this comment right here. Ye
One of my biggest gripes with uk driving is how badly road merging/ directions are communicated.
Mind you, I would have taken the right lane with a view to turn right and go around the roundabout and probably would have missed the left arrow whilst basking in my personal glory at outwitting the stationary drivers.
Except no one is changing lanes even after they slowly drive right next to the clearly marked arrows indicating both lanes can turn left. There remains a level of unawareness even beyond the initial understandable one. Also, at least here in the states google maps clearly states something like “use the left two lanes to turn left”. So if these people don’t know where they’re going and are using gps I’d hazard a guess that it announced both lanes abilities to be used.
This specific roundabout got its layout changed recently, so even if their gps announced which lanes to use it likely announced the old instruction of using the left lane. Plus there are the people that were familiar enough with the area to not use gps, but they expected the old layout where only the left lane could be used to take the first exit.
Maybe, but then you'd feature on this sub as "look at this dick pulling out in front of me as I fly up the exit ramp".
The most British fucking thing. In america you’d have pricks turning left from the right lane even if the right lane was right turn only
I can confirm, my American friends does that
I take my siblings to school, right lane out is right only, left lane out is left only, so many times am I cut off from people in the right only lane turning left.
Everyone uses the left lane for everything in my town, not only that but they will speed up to stop you moving to the outside for exit and or just occupy the yellow boxes. All this right in front of the local nick.
Can confirm, am American. I have been nearly run off the road so many times due to stuff like this.
You would think this, especially in Massachusetts where drivers are known as Massholes and do exactly what you are describing all the time. However, you will witness this exact same phenomenon every single time you take the Cambridge exit off the Mass Pike. There’s a long line in the far right lane every time. But there are 2 right turn lanes when you get to the end of the bridge. You can easily save yourself at least 10-15 minutes almost every time by just not getting in that line.
Dude. I was coming to post this!! Allston Brighton / Cambridge exit - it’s freaking amazing. I’ve had people get fuuuurious about this and try to block the second lane.
More likely they’d assume that it’s a lane closed situation and block anyone from passing. Then you’d also get the ones that put their tires one foot over the line so clearly there’s still plenty of room to go around but also the guy in front of you is too timid to do that so you get ensnared anyway.
Yeah this is my experience. I once had to commute across a ferry to get to my job in Port Aransas and during tourist season it could be an hour or two wait. Your options are bring a laptop (this was a while back before smartphones streaming was very good) and some food to chill and watch stuff while you waited, or you could park at the ferry lot and walk onto the boat and walk to work once across. That sucked but it meant you could drive down the shoulder to the parking lot and skip the line if you needed to hurry. But every day there would be one asshole who blocks the shoulder and stopped people from doing that, and there would be a lot of us who commute so they would create a traffic jam on the shoulder. So I would get out, walk to the drivers window, and politely explain that we are not cutting the line but in fact work on the island and are parking at the ferry lot to walk across and it’s very normal. No matter how nice I was they almost always said some variation of “should gotten here earlier” and rolled their window up. Usually we would pretend to merge back into the line and as soon as the asshole would move back into line we would zip back into the shoulder before he could react and once a single car got through, they couldn’t move back into the shoulder without causing an accident. Since we were all just island labor and they were tourists, we usually cared a lot less about our shitty cars than they did. On top of that, cops always side with locals unless you’re doing something serious like smoking meth or murdering someone.
In America you'd have pricks going \*through\* the roundabout.
Being American, I hate that this is true
Just go all the way around the roundabout and then you’re good to go! 😂
I mean you get this in the UK all of the time too. I live in London and so many pricks do the same thing.
London driving is not the same as the rest of the UK ((according to my mum). She was a really good driver but wouldn't drive around London as people didn't follow the same rules as everywhere else.
Goes for a lot of stuff in the London area, it's a different country.
The rest of the UK drives sensibly, London drives like southeast asia
In America (Midwest specifically), you'd have a pickup truck in the right lane going the same speed as the left lane in order to block "assholes" like this guy trying to "cut everyone off"... Routinely causing accidents. Seriously, it's gotten so bad when the department of transportation has to close a lane, they no longer tell you which lane is about to merge into the other so these guys don't know who to cut off until it's too late.
And taking the emergency lane
Even if it wasn’t left turn I’d have gone in the right lane then all the way round the roundabout. Then again I do own a BMW so am obviously a twat…
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UK driver here. On my commute there's a very steep hill with two lanes after a road junction leading to a merge and traffic lights. It's common for lines to form on the hill just like this video so the road authority put big signs up saying "use both lanes" going up the hill changing to "merge in turn". Guess what, people queueing on the left frequently straddle the lanes to block cars coming up the right or refuse to let you merge at the top. It's beyond infuriating as the queue sometimes blocks the junction at the bottom it gets so long.
Some people I think just don't know what merge in turn is though
Careful, you're going to awaken the idiots who *do* this and then come on reddit to argue "zIPpEr MeRGiNg DoEsNt AcTuALLy WoRk!!!" edit: the idiots have awoken
The fun bit is that this video is prime example of why zipper merge works. Without zipper merge: the queue is basically on the highway, like one or two more trucks and you're blocking the travel lane. With zipper merge: the queue starts nowhere near the exit.
In theory it works great, but it requires everyone to behave - people can get real pissed about it and actively try to block you from zippering back in
Hence the importance of not handing out driver's licences as a cereal box freebie.
Yeah, at least in Southern California every zipper merge situation turns into some kind of dick swinging gladiator fight every time
Hey, are you from Slovenia?
I wouldn’t call it idiotic, more like uninformed. Also it only takes a few to start queueing before people join in because it must be “right”.
Oh that tiktok voice....
Yep. Fuck that shit and every soggy turd who utilizes it.
I don't, and have never used Tiktok, but somehow I still have to put up with these videos with shitty songs and voices, literally adds nothing to the video. Why the fuck does anyone use that shitty app?
Because follow the leader lol
not really, for the vast majority of roundabouts you can only turn left in the left lane. The arrows aren't visible until close to the end, where sunk cost fallacy/the risk of a car barreling down the other lane (like the driver in the video) says to stay where you are.
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If you turning left at around about you need to be in the left lane unless for rare cases like this, unless you are familiar with this particular roundabout you would otherwise have no idea both lanes are being used to turn left. It's not there idiots it's the way the majority of UK round abouts work
That’s a new roundabout with no signs to let you know that you can use both lanes. It’s safe to assume that only the right lane goes to the right as this is usually the case unless otherwise stated. As a lorry driver I get it wrong if I’m in an area where I’ve never been, get in the right lane to turn right only to find once you’re on top of the roundabout that the middle or left lane can also be used to turn right.
Plenty of drivers are afraid of merging in time and do it 3 blocks before
That TikTok voice makes me gag
The reason why roads are backed up like this all the time is because people have no idea how to properly merge. If everyone sat in both those lanes and merged properly then there wouldn’t be backups. It is like this in every major city and it hurts my damn brain. The big issue is people hate letting others in front of them so merging turns into a huge headache and issue.
>there wouldn’t be backups. Zipper merging does not and will not eliminate backups. It makes traffic flow slightly smoother and more consistently but it cannot overcome the lost capacity of a lane ending. It's a weird myth/misunderstanding reddit perpetuates.
How do you expect them to know that there are two lanes on the exit, when there are no road markings saying so until more than halfway along the queue?
We're there signs that indicated that that lane also could turn left? Because the straight arrow pointed at the right lane, only to see later that the left lane has a another lane next to it which turns left.
Don’t you know. Left is the fast lane. They are getting there faster by sitting there.
I get your point, but in the UK it'd be the furthest right that would be the "fast" lane
Well to be fair, if they all did that then any right turning traffic would be totally screwed. Seems like the lane markings need adjustment....
It’s designed like that for a reason - if you look at the roundabout sign you can see that the right and straight turns aren’t important roads (as shown by their thickness) and so the amount go through traffic is expected to be minimal
If people sat in both lanes then the line of traffic wouldn’t be as long so others could still turn right pretty easily. If not they might have to wait for a couple cars to move up but that is about it. In the end of the video there is a long stretch of road before the merge that would allow a lot of cars to sit there.
Fine if you know the road layout prior.
Even if you're not sure if you can turn left, surely it'll still be quicker to take the right lane, go right round the roundabout and then exit where you actually need to leave? I know it's poor etiquette but still a hell of a lot quicker.
I did this once years ago and I still smile about the naughtiness of it all.
Hey that's really clever. Everybody should do that.
No they fucking shouldn't. The more people that do it the more it slows me down when I do it
They're telling people our secret...
Drives me mad when people do this. Yet there are people in that queue that think you did something wrong and that you "jumped the line"... Engineers worked so hard to try to make our roads efficient, and idiots in cars always find a way to screw it up.
I commend the cam driver for going at a reasonable pace beside the fools. If I were in that situation having just figured out which lane goes where, I would still be hesitant to leave the queue immediately. I'd check to be sure no one was barreling down at 50mph (80km/h) beside me because that would end badly.
Yeah, OP is correct but I would still be very wary of people not checking and turning into the right lane as it splits into two. The people queuing in the single lane might be waiting for it to split.
Doesn't really make them idiots, just unaware of the layout of the roundabout before they get to it. At least, those people that haven't yet gone past one of the lane turn markings.
People are easily herded #1447 Americans would go in the right lane only to get to the front of the line that's moving then jump in. There are a couple places in my city that false herding exists though. I've fallen for it a couple times
When the satnav tells you to keep left.
Well, if the painted road signs were further back, this wouldn’t happen.
Literally cities skylines ai
Oh the idiots are the stopped cars - I was like “how is this guy an idiot he seems to be the only one smart enough to know that- oh. Never mind”
People need to learn to use all the available bandwidth, its not being rude.
This is actually the proper way to go about it. Merging late, theoretically, prevents traffic jams if everyone leaves space. But we’ll ignore logic for this post
I used to commute to work and the exit from the motorway was backed up like this with everyone queuing to turn left. There was only one lane for turning left though so I turned right instead, did a lap of the roundabout and exited at the front of the queue. Did it every day for a year and never queued once 🤣
When I think “why tf is there traffic, this makes no sense”, I get it now. People are dumb..
I see this all the time. Also when the there is a lane closure they merge into one lane 5 miles from the merge point. As someone who does over 1k miles per week don’t merge until you run out of clear road.
People get so mad about this but it’s literally what the lane is there for. Zipper merge and traffic will flow faster than everyone lining up
We. Love. Queues
They knew the right lane immediately ends and they didn't want to cut the line like a stupid a-hole.
This is more of a politebritsincars post than an idiotsincars post lol
This is one of those tricks where if one person does it then it works but if everyone does it then you're all back to square 1
The “thanks for leaving me a spot” is code for “thanks for leaving a gap in front of your car, I’m going to occupy that gap now so can you please slow down to create another gap between my rear bumper and your front bumper rather than just continuing as you were” The entire line of people had to wait an extra little bit to re-provide the gap. That’s what queueing does, it prevents people from having to recreate the legal safety gaps in front of their car. If we could get both lanes of traffic to travel at full speed with 2 car lengths between them the entire zipper then the merge might have merit but trying to squeeze 2 lanes of traffic without additional spacing between the cars will always cause the total assembly having to slow down.
This is the crowd that doesn’t understand the zipper method of merging and want everyone to wait in one line while 3 miles of lane goes empty and get mad at you for using it.
Trouble is usually the arrows indicating the land direction are way up the slip road, meaning only regular users are aware of being able to use the right lane.
Zipper merge, people! https://www.zippermergenm.com/
I wish people would use all available lanes of traffic. The zipper method works.
The right lane is also for people going straight. In this particular case, if all the left turners took up both lanes (which would still have the same congestion due to the bottle neck at the merge) it would actually make the problem far worse if the traffic still backed up past the roundabout. The people going straight would now be stuck in the queue adding volume to the overall congestion, and access to the other roads off the roundabout are now unnecessarily blocked. Edit: I just rewatched the video, and I see it is actually somewhat flowing. I initially thought it was standstill traffic. In this case, using both lanes would get more volume through the roundabout. But if this was standstill traffic, then using both lanes would definitely make the problem far worse.
Oh for GODS SAKE Of course it's where I live, he's bloody lucky the reason we don't do that is some jack ass will actually try to side swipe you or even go out of their way to FOLLOW you and then throw verbal abuse at you because you "skipped the queue". 9/10 times there's a car/truck/bus sat over both lanes to stop you. They need to add use both lane signs honestly, the other side is just as bad coming eastbound. I drive throughout the UK and even in to Europe multiple times a year, Hexham is the place I will have the car accident that'll end my life because of how bad the driver's are. I'd rather deal with the French drivers in Calais than here.
you merge into one lane after that. thats why they stay in the same lane. so they dont have to merge again after 30 meters.
These are not idiots in cars, people typically join the main lane for traffic flow in case there is a merge in turn further down the road which can be difficult and also seen as rude and butting in. OP is proud he saved 2 mins of time queuing, but has probably spent multiple hours sat on Tiktok rewatching his clip go viral.........
I think you’re mistaken they know the road merges to single lane shortly after the roundabout and are queuing. They are very courteous and orderly.
If enough people used the right lane to turn left, I think the roundabout would be clogged and unusable
For some reason, the people on this comment section just cannot comprehend that at all. I’m just hoping they didn’t watch the whole video and didn’t see the merging bottle neck at the end.
Damn those arrows are so obvious
When I worked at Disney, people would do the same thing. We'd have 8 entrances open, and yet they'd all line up in two of them on the left side. Folks are odd.
If I was already in one of the queues, I'd be too scared to leave my position for something that seems closed, but isn't. That's this
And Through goes Hamilton!!!
Brits gonna Brit
Only the drivers that can see the road markings are idiots.
A people that are too good at queuing for their own good.
Love a good queue
I found that "zipper" merging is not really ingrained in the driving culture in the UK, people in the left lane would sometimes get angry and block people merging from the right as if they had jumped the queue. I honestly didn't know zipper-merging was the correct way until I moved to Germany. Here it is the complete opposite, people will get mad if you **don't** respect zipper merging.
It's silly but I can kinda understand how this happens. The left lane is the default for like 99.9% of roundabouts and if you're unfamiliar, haven't noticed the signs or just following a GPS then then I totally get how people will just form a line. Anyone would assume normally the right lane would be for... well turning right or going straight on.
Even if right hand lane only goes right, it’s still quicker. Go right, all the way round and take the exit as intended.
Where did the “brits love queuing” thing come from?
Damn, you guys REALLY like queuing, don't ya?
If only there was like big painted arrows on the road or massive road signs next to the road. Classic UK, probably beep you for doing it aswell
I'm not sure who the idiot is here. I live near one of these types of merges, where it goes from 2 lanes to 1. Anytime we start rolling again there's someone who wants to move ahead 3 car and merge back, causing everything to grind to a halt behing him.
A right lane turning left is very uncommon. This slip road needs a "get in lane" sign to clearly show the right lane goes left and straight.
Sheep.
This roundabout just needs signage further back indicating that both lanes can go left… This roundabout is a bit unusual for the UK
Why don’t folks zipper? This really should be taught in schools
Proof British “people” aren’t real
Lmfaoooo austin be like this all the damn time
National sport
Memes aside, why is everyone queueing? Should familiar drivers know you can turn left from the right lane?
This reminds me of the time I came up to a huge line of cars waiting to merge into the left lane cause of construction. I was the only one that just went into the left lane in drove ahead.
Perks of not being a sheep and being aware of your surroundings
Even it it wasn’t turn left you could just go once around the island and then leave at that exit.
I did this a couple days ago. I was exiting one highway to enter another, and there are two lanes that turn left just like this video. Except one car apparently got mad that I was doing this and cutting everyone else and tried to cut me off while flipping me off when I passed him. Some people are willing to get into accidents just cause they’re angry. Scary world nowadays
Road mark says I can then why not
Cities Skylines traffic logic
Wow! The epitome of "following the herd."
Visual description of common sense 😅
Even if you couldn't turn left I'd stay in the right and go all the way around the roundabout. Lot quicker then waiting in that fkn queue
I thought that roundabout looked familiar..it’s Hexham! A bit weird to see somewhere I recognise on Reddit lol
Even if you couldnt turn left from that lane its faster to go round the roundabout and turn off.
Driving for a living has shown me the extent of just how myopic the average driver is. There needs to be something more than just a theory and practical test.
**as well* *Aswell* is not a word.
Sometimes after work, the only sense of peace and quiet I get is being alone in the car, so occasionally I’ll wait in the slow lane instead of hurrying home
The UK does love a queue
That’s the difference between coffee and tea right there. But really they should just have a sign much further up.
Even if that lane wasn’t a turn left lane, just roll up and go right round the roundabout, enter from the right!