Cynthia Dill’s Aug. 19 column equated “zipper merging” to just about everything under the sun. Comparing anything mentioning the words “left” and “right” is dangerous and easily misused these days, regardless of your intent or skill with the English language.

Zipper merging is nothing new. The folks in Europe have been doing it successfully for over 50 years.

Disregarding her “experts,” who claim late merging is “genius,” Ms. Dill misses three very important points:

– If highway repair equally closes left and right lanes and drivers are required to pull to the right following accidents, right-lane closures make up the majority of mergers, obviously merging to the left.

– If you define the point where the right lane ends as the merger point, you have framed the argument to favor your opinion. It could be equally argued that the merger point is the sign that announces the closure and merger should begin there. Of course, doing so would require you to zipper merge at that point, with the intestinal fortitude to ignore the many people in the right lane who come up from behind looking to race up to “their” merger point, blowing their horns and blinking their lights.

– At least in Maine, passing on the right is against the law. Every driver who Ms. Dill claims is properly informed about the correct merger point and zipper merging by passing on the right is breaking the law.

I would expect a columnist, civil rights lawyer and former state senator to have a better handle on Maine law and logic.

Loren D. Porr

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