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I rarely have seen issues in California with zipper merge, when the lanes are actually merging. Most of the time the issue I've seen is when people are cutting over from a turn only lane to try and force their way to go straight.

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Turn-only lanes (using a turn-only lane to go straight) is where I see the worst cheater/vigilante behavior. (It's always BMW's who do it, too... )

Those turn-only lanes are just wasted capacity that could be used to carry more traffic into a zipper merge. I'm guessing that at some peak hour the turn lane has utility, but at reverse-peak they should be able to switch to a regular lane leading to a merge point.

Zipper merging inside an intersection will almost certainly lead to gridlock due to incomplete mergers before the light changes.

Referring to exit-only lanes on highways, not signaled intersections.

Yeah, that situation is where I see it 2nd-most; first most is people trying to change lanes into an exit lane right at the exit when they're in a non-exit lane and want to exit. Those are lane changes, though, not merges.

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