It DOES NOT matter if it’s done with 3 feet to merge or 300 feet to merge. There’s no efficiency gain.

Merging early leaves unused road. Shoving the cars into fewer lanes makes the traffic jam longer and makes it impact more interesections far behind the actual hangup. If you can merge early without slowing down, sure go for it. I’m mostly talking about the scenarios where it’s already slowed to a crawl and people feel like they have to merge early to not be seen as “cutting in line.”

Edit, also to add, if everyone merges early even at speed, eventually, the car density in the reduced lanes will reach a point where people naturally slow down and you have bumper to bumper traffic.

I suggest Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt for more.

Zipper merging.

If your lane is closing ahead, it is better for everyone in traffic if you drive all the way to the end of the lane and cut in at the last moment.

Note that this does not apply to exit lanes. The basic rule is if late merging blocks someone from going somewhere, merge early. Otherwise, merge as late as you can.

Is it because the amps are high

Yes. I don’t know about for motorcycles, but in a car, it’s like hundreds of amps. That’s a lot of fucking amps.