Construction on Lebanon Church Rd means lanes are filtered down to one, except drivers here don’t know what zipper merging is.
Allegheny County-area driver and Redditor /u/Lightningdash3804 shared head-shaking dashcam footage from Lebanon Church Rd from earlier in September (Sept 6, 2026) to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit, showing a line of ignorant drivers refusing to zipper merge. One doofus even tried to stop this one dashcam owner from doing so.
Check out how it all played out below, with the original Reddit thread linked here.
The incident happened along the 2000 block of Lebanon Church Rd just before the intersection with Camp Hollow (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As the dashcam shows, OP is driving east on Lebanon Church.
A $19 million project started last year along Lebanon Church Rd means lanes are reduced to one at several locations; the aforementioned area OP is driving through is one of them.
Lanes reduced to one means congestion near the merge point, but, as shown, traffic is severely backed up farther than it has to be, more than half a mile.
In these situations, according to PennDOT, drivers are encouraged to use zipper merging.
“Zipper merge is the concept that you would use both lanes that are available on the roadway until the merge point. And then at the merge point, both lanes of traffic would take their turn and proceed as one lane,” Ernest Cascino, District Traffic Engineer for PennDOT District 9, said.
OP can be seen using the right lane to get to the merge point.
However, as pointed out by others in the comments, the speed at which he does so is questionable.
At one point, he hits 53 MPH.
Local drivers don’t understand zipper merging so much that one doofus in their Ford F-150 tried to actively block OP from filtering towards the front, risking what would’ve been one expensive sideswipe.
As you can see, OP was forced towards the guardrail.
Thankfully, nothing came of the close call.
With construction on this road slated through next summer, it would behoove drivers to follow the advice of PennDOT and start to use the available open lanes until the merge point.
“Great for the zipper merge, perfectly fine. Though I have my doubts about passing stopped cars doing 50+ while heading into a construction zone on a tight roadway with no shoulder and looking directly into the sun,” one of the top comments from /u/Churchill5 reads.
“Absolutely love that you shot the gap instead of letting him win lmao,” /u/GoldenCSB added.
“I’ve done this only to find out that the lane closure wasn’t there anymore. Everyone got over for nothing. Lemmings,” /u/Ace784 shared.
In Pennsylvania, actively blocking another vehicle from merging could potentially be charged as careless driving (§3714) if the conduct was unsafe; careless driving carries 3 points, with the fine determined by the court and circumstances. (Pennsylvania General Assembly)
