For years, motorists who see a “Lane Closed Ahead” sign and remain in the lane that is closing are viewed as somewhere between being discourteous and being an outright jerk. However, with many major highways under construction this summer, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is asking drivers in a closing lane to get as close as possible to the front of the line and “zipper merge.”

To learn the rationale why zipper merging is a good thing and reduces the time that all drivers spent backed up traffic, go to MnDOT’s zipper merging web page at http://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/