The scenario: My car is behind another, driving from a city street onto a highway via an “on-ramp.” While going down the ramp, gaining speed to match the highway flow, I checked over my shoulder (about 1.5 seconds) at the highway traffic looking for the gap I was going to use to merge with the 60 M.P.H. traffic. I turned back to see the car in front of me at a DEAD STOP! I slammed on my brakes and narrowly avoided killing the both of us. We were both furious (as evidenced by our mutual gesticulations in our cars). I thought for sure this guy was idiot. But since that time (in the region I now live), I have seen this maneuver a few more times. I am now wondering if this is what some people have been taught.
I had specifically learned in Driver’s Ed that the on-ramp was meant to be an acceleration ramp so that you would be moving with the flow of traffic by the time you reach it. Doing so will prevent other people from having to slam on their brakes if you were trying to bring your auto up from 0-60. Conversely, the off-ramp is a deceleration-ramp.
Was I taught wrong? What do you folks do when entering a highway? Go for it and find a gap? Or wait for one to present itself?
This discussion pertains ONLY to non-metered on-ramps
This kind of thing drives me crazy too. The sign says ‘YIELD’ not stop. Since traffic around here is not too bad, not many people stop at these ramps. If traffic is really bad, you may be forced to stop if nobody will let you out. Most of the people I see stop try to turn their bodies all the way around to see behind them, which indicates to me they don’t know how to set their mirrors to see behind them.
I see that all the time here, trying to get on the Baltimore Beltway. Morons, the lot of 'em.
You’re right; it’s an acceleration ramp. You’re supposed to be getting up to speed and merging into traffic, not stopping.
If they wanted you to stop, there would be a stop sign there.
It’s especially bad at many ramps for the Beltway here, because they’re cloverleaf-style entrance and exit ramps (which they’re getting rid of, thank God), and if you don’t get up to speed and over into the regular travel lane, you’ll be stuck in the off-ramp for the exit where you just got on.
On the other hand, what do you do when the right hand lane is full?
I wouldn’t do a complete stop, but sometimes you have to slow your approach top get into a gap.
Hey You, did you know that there are on-ramps with stop signs at the end of them? Neither did I until I first encountered one a few years ago. Now what the hell is the point of that?!
There’s one road (280 near Larpenteur, for any of you Twin City Dopers) that has really tight and short cloverleaf on/off ramps, and it’s impossible to get up to merging speed in time to join traffic. So I stop there and wait for a big break in traffic (I’m never on it when it’s busy), but am otherwise a “proper” driver.
If the right lane is too packed to safely merge onto (not an unlikey scenario around here) I’d stop and leave enough room to accelerate to about road speed so I could merge when an opening presents itself. Otherwise, I don’t know why a person would stop at the on-ramp.
Except…
At certain times of day, and at certain onramps, there are red lights on the Long Island Expressway onramps, right before you actually get off the onramp into the merging lane. That is, before it enters the lane from which you must eventually merge into the regular highway, each car must briefly (for a second or 2) stop at a red light. This is, I think, to control the rate at which new traffic enters the busy highway.
When I was younger, a friend’s mother would stop at the end of the on-ramp, and wait for a gap. Even though we were too young to drive, we still knew that this was not safe. After a while, if she offered to drive us anywhere that involved a freeway, we’d decline. Getting where we were going just didn’t seem that important if she was going to drive us. Or kill us, which is what we were sure would eventually happen if she kept stopping at the end of the acceleration ramp.
Nowadays, I use the acceleration ramp to accelerate; to get up to the speed of the traffic, and merge. The speed of the traffic doesn’t matter–slow-moving traffic, fast-moving traffic; the trick is to find the traffic speed and get to it, then merge. There are always a few (ahem) blankety-blanks who don’t want to let you in (well, when I lived in Toronto, there were plenty), and in the cases when I got up to highway speed but thanks to a blankety-blank [oh if this were only in the Pit], I absolutely could not get into a through lane, I’d drive down the shoulder until I could. Usually with a great torrent of profanity for those who seemed to put effort into speeding up and keeping me from merging in front of them.
Hey you, you did fine–you were using the acceleration ramp for its intended purpose, but you were also alert enough to avoid an accident with the other car. Whose driver, incidentally, might benefit from a remedial course in Driver’s Ed. If he lives that long.
I’m with the OP. Slow down if you have to, but don’t stop! Also, don’t drive in the far right lane (the one the OP was trying to get into) until right before your off-ramp. If everyone did that, this would be a non-issue. I always drive in either the 2nd-to-right lane or lefter.
A wise attitude. Someday, I hope to achieve your level of serenity with my surroundings. But at this point, I still scream and curse and lean on my horn when the idiot ahead of me is stopped at the entrance to the &%$# highway.
I live near an interstate highway, you see, and use it frequently. The on-ramps often feed directly into special little merging lanes, which are there SOLELY to give you plenty of time and room to accelerate to highway speeds and merge into traffic.
The point of this: if you are going to stop ANYWHERE, it should be at the end of the damn feeder lane, and only if traffic is hellishly thick and NO ONE will stop or slow down to let you in. Traffic is NEVER that thick.
But some people are apparently unaware of the existence of the merging lane, or of its purpose, and ignore it, preferring to wait at the end of the onramp for a break in traffic.
It’s enough to bring back my teenage fantasies about headlight-mounted machine guns and a hood-ornament-mounted rocket launcher…
The first on-ramp onto the northbound 101 after the Golden Gate Bridge forces you to make a 180° turn, so you can’t build up speed. There’s no merging lane, and people are sometimes coming off the bridge so fast you’d think the four hoursemen of the apocalypse bought the used rocket-powered Acme roller skates from Wyle E. Coyote and were coming up quickly behind using the members of KISS as their finger puppets of doom.
Sometimes, if you don’t stop, you’re just driving badly. People who aren’t paying enough attention to the car ahead of them to see if it stops shouldn’t be on the road anyway.
I agree stopping unless you have to seems insanely counter-productive.
But from the UK “Highway Code” (the offical driving manual) on overtaking on motorways:
They seem to think you should check over your shoulder briefly before doing anything important. Are American mirrors just better, or are we way out of date, or is Britain just being stupid?
No, there’s a blind spot somewhere, no matter how your mirrors are aligned. The best setup I’ve seen has the side mirrors covering the area immediately beside what you can see in the rear-view, leaving a blind spot outside the rear windows just large enough for a car to fit into. There’s no way I know of to get complete coverage with your mirrors.
Back to the OP, one of the things I had to get used to in Pittsburgh is that so many on-ramps dive right on to the highway with no merge lanes. Those all have stop signs at the ends of them. (This is one of the reasons why Pittsburgh just needs to be blown up and rebuilt from scratch.) At the risk of venturing Pit-ward, there’s a ramp here that comes down a hill – leaving you unable to see any of the Parkway until you’re almost in traffic – into a stop sign. You must then gun the engine to get up to speed and merge left within 100 feet (30-ish meters) to avoid getting forced onto an exit ramp. Within 500 feet you must then slam on your brakes as you enter the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, which people drive through at an average speed of about 35 MPH (about 60 KPH) because… well, I have no idea why.
Fun, ain’t it? Just be glad you didn’t hit the guy; they’d have found a way to make it your fault.
Thanks for your experience, folks. I’m getting the sense that whereas using the on-ramp for speeding up to traffic flow speed, there are notable exceptions to this rule.
N9IWP: In my experience, when the right-hand lane is literally full, it’s rush hour and the traffic is at a standstill. In which case, I’m not accelerating anyway. In cases where heavy traffic is moving along at a decent rate, I do aim for the nearest available gap at a speed consistent with traffic flow. Thus far (after 18 years of driving), I can’t recall any instance where I haven’t been able to slide in.
elfkin477: I did NOT know that. Wow. Are the stop signs positioned at the very end, where the ramp meets the highway; or at an on-ramp midpoint, similar to where metered lights are positioned in some metro areas?
easy e: I’m not familiar with that particular cloverleaf. Is it anything like the one on the east side of the Twin Cities where 94, 494, and 694 meet? I know that one VERY well and I consider that one pretty darn tight with cars entering AND exiting in the exact same space. My experience with that style of interchange is that decisiveness and commitment to a decision is the most valuable strategy for navigating it successfully.
Qwertyasdfg: If I understand you correctly, I think you are describing metered on-ramps. Yes?
Denis: A healthy road-attitude. You’re a paragon in the battle against road-rage.
wevets: I can appreciate that there are likely exceptions to any rule and the conditions you descibe may well be one of them. Since I haven’t experienced it firsthand, I’ll take your word that this is the way to handle this particular interchange. But I’m curious whether this is your standard operating procedure or the exception?
NotQuiteAYinzer: I have nothing to say except: Unbelievable. None too eager to visit Pittsburgh.
Same in the UK, you accelerate up or down the slip road to motorway or near motorway speed and then slip into a gap. Usually the other traffic moves into the overtaking lane to facilitate you.
Only place I’ve stopped is the Westlink in Belfast during rush hour, just no way to slip in at all :rolleyes:
NitPick here: You should review the fine print of your driver’s handbooks. Yield means to merge, if clear. AND, ALSO! It does mean to STOP if one cannot possibly meld into the stream of traffic. When something yields, that means it gives way. You, in the access ramp, must give way to the flow of the highway traffic. Specifically, it requires the driver to use good judgment in each scenario…but all that won’t fit on a street sign!
Heck, along these lines…a green light does not simply mean “go”, either, BTW.