Tradie ‘run over’ after fight about merging in a zipper lane

An intense bout of road rage recorded on camera shows the moment a tradie is struck by another vehicle, with viewers divided over who had right of way.

A wild road rage dispute about merging lanes ended with a man wearing high-vis screaming in pain claiming he had been run over.

Dashcam footage shared to Facebook captured the moment the truck tried to merge on a busy highway as his lane came to an end.

After getting beeped by another vehicle, a man in a bright yellow shirt appears at the driver’s front window and is seen hitting the bonnet of the car.

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The truck is seen attempting to merge. Picture: Facebook.

During the interaction, the car with the dashcam edges forward and appears to nudge the tradie, who can be heard screaming: “My leg, my leg, get off”.

“Get out... don’t step in front of it,” the truck driver bluntly replies as the man winces in pain out of the vision of the camera.

The clip was shared to Dash Cam Owners Australia, where motorists were divided over who was more at fault.

“How hard is it for each person to let one other person in,” wrote one man.

“It’s ROAD RAGE. End of story. Nothing to do with merging rights. No one gets harmed if they stay in their vehicles,” wrote another social media user.

“Lawyers can argue about responsibility for injury but I’d be arguing the dashcam driver was startled with the guy reaching towards him, thus his van lunged forward.”

A man in a high-vis shirt exits his car and starts berating the truck driver. Picture: Facebook.

While road rules in Australia can change depending on state and territory, in instances where a vehicle needs to merge because their lane is ending, road markings will determine the car with the right of way.

In the instances where there aren’t any lane markings (a zipper merge), vehicles in the continuing lane must give way to the merging vehicle in front of them.

However, in the case of a marked lane with distinguished broken lines, such as the case caught on the dashcam, the driver in the lane that’s ending must give way to the traffic in the adjacent lane.

Although penalties vary across Australia, incorrectly merging carries the biggest fine in South Australia, where drivers will cop a $392 fine and three demerit points.

In this situation, the vehicle travelling in the lane coming to an end would be required to give way. Picture: NSW Government.

A diagram of a zipper merge, where there are not road markings to indicate the end of a lane. Picture: NSW Government.

Originally published as Tradie ‘run over’ after fight about merging in a zipper lane