re: Germans: the autobahn is a true delight

The Germans are also masters of the zipper merge. Amazing how.much it helps traffic flow when everyone cooperates instead of competing. Rather than almost everyone pre merging early, they wait until near the lane closure. Thus, you get the bare minimum distance of reduced lanes and congestion instead of essentially creating a single lane much earlier than necessary plus less orderly flow as people block out or try to "skip" ahead.