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Here in Norway, there is in most cases (by far) mandatory "zipper merging", both on on-ramps and where two lanes narrow down to one, which is common as two or more lanes in the same direction for more than a km or two is a rarity here. This is however always denoted by signs either way, and I think it is a good system.
I'm sometimes nervous when in other countries where the traffic on the main road always has the right of way, since according to my experience, people there does much less to help ease merging, since they don't have to. Indeed, I had to emergency brake at the end of an on-ramp to a two-lane (in my direction) highway in Paris once in the middle of the night with no traffic: I had the pedal floored the whole ramp, but with an underpowered and probably slightly overloaded car, I couldn't get up to full speed before the end, and the truck blasting away in the right lane at a lot more than the limit didn't bother to change to the empty left lane. I haven't looked up the details in the French traffic regulations, but he could legally do that as far as I understand.
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