Road construction is a necessary evil. If there were never any road work done, we’d be driving on roads that crumble and are full of potholes, but that doesn’t mean that anyone ever likes the bottleneck that happens when a lane is closed for road construction.

Imagine driving on the highway when several lanes are merging into one lane due to road construction. What would you do if other drivers were using the entrance/exit ramp to pass everyone waiting to merge and skip ahead to merge at the last second? Would you join them, block them, or ignore them?

In this story, one driver decides to try blocking them from pulling ahead, but he’s not sure that was a good idea.

Keep reading for all the details.

AITA for blocking a lane that’s closed up ahead for construction?

My commute to work involves a stretch of highway that is initially 3 lanes, but currently goes down to one lane because the left is closed for construction and the right becomes an entrance/exit ramp.

Today, half a mile or less from the bottleneck, traffic in the middle lane (the only lane that continues) slowed down almost to a full stop.

As I sat in this lane, I noticed a few cars driving full speed down the left lane that closes up ahead, and I could see that most of such vehicles would only merge when physically blocked by construction barrels; they refused to merge into the open lane any earlier than the last possible moment, causing even more slow down.

He thought another driver had a good idea.

After a moment, I saw someone ~20-30 vehicles ahead block the left lane to stop some of these people from going any further down the lane that closed a short distance further.

I thought it was a good choice, as the two or three cars that approach him all merged in behind him instead of waiting for the construction barrels.

So, when the left lane was clear for a moment, I merged there and stayed behind the car in front of me in the other lane.

One driver got road rage.

When I did, most of left-lane drivers yielded and merged in behind me, but a couple tried to use the shoulder to squeeze between my car and the center barrier, almost hitting side mirrors with me.

One of these drivers slowed down and proceeded to rage from behind his window. Fortunately, he didn’t try to get out of his vehicle to confront me.

AITA for blocking this lane? Am I correct in thinking that people need to merge earlier to not screw over everyone waiting in the correct lane (not to mention those trying to merge in from the other side from the entrance ramp), or is it too dangerous to test people’s patience and try to force them to wait?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who abandoned their own D&D campaign when their friends stopped paying attention.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this road construction and road rage drama.

This person explains a zipper merge.

Another person thinks OP was in the wrong.

Here’s another vote for minding your own business.

Everyone thinks OP messed up.

It seems that the consensus is that the other drivers didn’t do anything wrong but OP did. I can understand why he was frustrated at the other drivers zooming ahead. Honestly, I probably would be too. But it seems that the advice in the comments is to mind your business business. It’s not his job to control traffic.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a bus driver who is sick and tired of covering everyone else’s weekend shifts.