Drivers can be saints or sinners when it comes to merging lanes, and sometimes the road brings out both.

When one man found himself stuck behind a familiar traffic jam, he witnessed a small but glorious act of rebellion by another driver.

What he did next turned a mundane commute into a moment of pure, petty satisfaction.

Read on for the full story!

Not all heroes wear capes.

Here’s the scene: two lanes of traffic — the right lane is merging in at some point down the way due to construction.

I’m already in the left lane, so I stay put.

Drivers in this area aren’t really the best.

I live in a place where people don’t really “get” the idea of filling both lanes to the merge point and then doing the zipper merge — it’s dumb, but it’s born of people’s kindness and a lack of assertiveness.

So, in short order, the right lane empties out, primed for the AHs who don’t understand the culture here to barrel down the right lane to the merge point, jumping the line and effectively causing all of us in the left lane to stop to a crawl.

Now, I don’t blame them because this is what I would LIKE to do — but I’m not going to because it would make me the AH.

Soon the main character comes onto the road.

Enter my hero: the jacked-up Ford F150 in front of me who sort of drifted a bit into the right lane to see how far the merge point is.

I assume he’s sizing up whether or not to join the AHs and cut the line.

What happens next is so petty and so brilliant.

He does NOT barrel down to the merge point — no!

He does something very different instead, and seems quite satisfied with himself.

He simply sits far enough into the right lane to block all future AHs from flying past us and jumping the line.

I caught his smirk in the side-view mirror as he watched the right lane fill up behind him, and eventually start merging where they were.

I gave him a thumbs-up from over my steering wheel as we passed through the short construction zone.

He waved back.

Not all heroes wear capes, indeed.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter has some strong opinions on the zipper merge.

Sometimes traffic payback doesn’t go as expected.

No one can seem to agree on the best way to prevent these kinds of incidents.

Maybe this man wasn’t the hero, as previously thought.

Who knew justice could roll on four wheels and wear a smirk?

Traffic justice just needs good timing and a pickup truck.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.