So I recently moved out to the 'burbs, and honestly my commute is not as bad as I thought it would be, except for one thing.
There’s a bit of construction on the freeway I take to work, which thankfully will be ending soon. There’s a ton of signage indicating that the left lane will be closed ahead, starting about two miles before it actually happens. Because I know the lane will be closed, I end up in the middle lane well ahead of time, and manage to go about 65-70 mph in that lane until about a mile before the lane closure.
At that point what happens is that it gets backed up because all the assholes who didn’t get over into the middle lane ahead of time are now piled up by the orange barrels, stopped in traffic with their turn signals on trying to get into the middle lane. To which I ask, why? Obviously you can fucking read, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to get your driver’s license in the first place. So clearly you know that you have to get over eventually. Why wait until the very last minute, at which point you have to stop, causing someone in the middle lane to have to stop to let you in, causing everyone else behind them to have to stop as well? Do you think the sign actually says “Left lane closed ahead, 2 miles, except for the douchebag in the Acura”? Or do you generally amble through life blissfully unaware of the consequences of your actions, speeding through the fast lane and wondering why everyone else is sitting there waiting in line driving 20 mph when they could be doing the speed limit with you?
This morning was the worst. When the traffic started backing up, I thoughtfully left three car lengths in between me and the next person in front of me, so the people in the fast lane could get over. None of them did. A full 20 people blazed past me, then sat parked in the fast lane with their blinkers on, their bovine eyes glazed over with confusion at their predicament. And the worst part is that people ahead of me stopped to let them in. Why do we reward assholes for being assholes?
Because it’s quicker for them to cut in at the last minute than have to wait in line behind everybody else. And they know someone will let them over. In short, because they’re dicks.
My guess is that these idiots consist of 95% this:
And 4% this:
And 1% tourists who are confused by the signs and roads and the smell coming from the kids in the back seat.
When I encounter the idiots who do this, I make every attempt to not let them in. This works especially well when I’m driving my 20 year old truck with rust and dents. If it’s a licence plate from far away, I’ll wave and let them in.
I read an article (don’t remember the source) where it was explained that the most efficient way to use the road would be to fully use both lanes and then merge gracefully at the end, instead of having a huge line of cars sitting in one lane with an empty lane next to it.
The problem being the “merge gracefully at the end” bit.
I just remembered where I read it! It was noted genius and know-it-all Marilyn Vos Savant (the person with the HIGHEST IQ EVER) in the scientific publication Parade Magazine.
Within the confines of an automobile people lose their identity and, therefore, for some their sense of responsibility. Their face and name shielded by a roof, able to escape with a wheel and gas pedal they pull some crap they’d never try and get away with around people they know.
In addition to the info Arnold Winkelried provided, this has been discussed on this board many times before. Here’s one thread (merging argument starts at about page 4):
Ahhh, but it seems that the OP is talking about a situation where the cars could have gotten into the non-disappearing lane without any backup occuring. They created a backup by putting themselves in a position where no one would let them in.
Now, you dont’ want to take that too far and merge a mile ahead of time, but it doesnt’ benefit anyone to literally wait until the last few hundred feet and then slow down when a hole doesn’t magically appear for you (for instance, if the cars either didn’t see you until too late, or think it too dangerous a maneuvre in heavy traffic to slow down.)
I’ll give you three good reason why I do this every single day. I assume you are talking about heavy traffic.
At the merge point nobody is going 65-70. Everybody is going 5-10 whatever lane they are in. You can say it’s the line cutters fault but that is the situation when I get there. Nobody is “sailing along at 65” whatever lane I get in so why not get in the lane that takes me the least amount of time.
If the cutters can drive up to the front and just cut right in that means that someone is letting them in. In fact, the cutter lane always moves faster than the non-cheater lane. That means that some people are letting two, three or more cutters in. Why? And why should I get behind those jerks? I swear, I have never had to wait more that two cars before somebody stops to let me in front, always with happy wave. Straighten those people out then the problem goes away.
Maybe the highway department could erect some sort of barrier to indicate the place to change lanes. You know, so we don’t all have to guess. They could make the barrier out of cones so it would be easy to see. But no, then someone would expect us all to know that that really means two miles beforehand.
Puh-lease. That’s not what causes the backup. It’s caused by having too many cars in one lane. In order for everyone to fit, everyone has to slow down so that the little space between the cars becomes the proper following distance. What makes it worse is when people see a sign that says, I dunno, “lane ends in 2 miles” and they merge over RIGHT THERE. Can’t they read? Don’t they know that they’re supposed to go up to the merge point and merge there? Why else do you think it’s called a merge point? Don’t they realize that they’re turning a 1-mile lane closure into a 3-mile one?
I like it when they put signs up for jackasses like the OP that say “proceed all the way to merge point”. I’m like “they couldn’t figure that out on their own?”
The thoughtful drivers move over early, leaving the about-to-be-closed lane practically wide open. Then the people who think they are smarter than they actually are will either stay in that lane or move into that lane and floor it, confident that they can zoom ahead and then get back over before they’re stuck.
It even works once in a while, until the number of people trying it goes over some magical terrible unknown limit – which it always does.
Something very American is at work here: the idea that breaking the rules is unfair even when the rules themselves are unfair.
Americans, however much of a hurry we may be in, will gladly slow things down for ourselves and everybody around us before we’ll forgive even the appearance of breaking the rule about Everybody In The Same Goddam Lane, Head Down, Eyes Front, and Shut Yer Mouth.
Zipper merging European-style does not even enter into the realm of possibility for most of us. That level of cooperation is not “courteous,” probably because it doesn’t bring people down to a common level in the fine and humble Christian way. Instead it allows people to help each other up to a new level - faster merging, in this case. That’s distressingly namby-pamby behavior, if it isn’t outright communistic.
Right on! And what makes it worse is when people merge in at various points throughout. So, someone at 0.4 miles from the merge point decides to move over, causing the people behind him to slow down, just as the guy who is 0.45 miles decides to move over. Now, the cars in front of him are slowing for the first guy, so this guy has to slow down further to move in, causing everyone behind him to slow down even more. So, the woman at 0.52 miles decides this is the best place to merge in, but everyone in front of her is already slowing for the first two guys, and now the traffic behind her has to come to a complete stop to let her in.
I spent some time working in Cincinnati, and this was the problem – people merging all over the place. Having grown up in a much heavier traffic place, with much more rude drivers, I merged at the merge point saving myself (and, really, others) lots of time).
Zipper at the merge point – that’s why it’s there.
In a two-lane situation with one lane disappearing, any two smart drivers can create a rolling mandatory-merge point ahead of the fixed one. Truckers sometimes do this, on roads with substantial 18-wheel traffic and many inconsiderate car drivers who don’t understand what trucks need to do to keep the overall flow moving.
Drive roughly side-by-side. The one lane will clear out at some point ahead of the closure. Hold your position, neither of you passing the other nor allowing anyone else to get by. (This is not an asshole maneuver in itself–though some behind you will not understand this–because everybody has to merge anyway, and forcing them to do it behind you, on a rolling basis, actually gets them through in a faster average time than the situation the OP describes.)
When you get close, the driver in the through lane should let himself fall back just to the point where the disappearing-lane driver’s rear bumper is just ahead of his own front one, thus leaving a one-vehicle hole in the through lane. The disappearing-lane driver slips over at the very last moment.
Of course, the most efficient way for two lanes to merge to one is for everybody in both lanes to space themselves out far in advance, with every driver in the through lane allowing a gap (safe for one vehicle to merge into) in front of himself, and every driver in the disappearing lane matching his speed and position to one of these gaps. Functionally this is alternating right-of-way between the two approach lanes for access to the one through lanes, but that’s never going to happen, is it? There are just too many people who are congenitally unable to have empty space in front of their cars. Even the two or three places I’ve seen that have permanent RoW alternation between lanes, as a signed traffic directive, are too much for some people to handle, so asking people to recognize temporary situations which call for the same behavior is certainly unrealistic.
Failing that, the rolling blockade is the most efficient approach, at least for group including the participating drivers and the several dozen in front of and behind them.
IMO, it’s because most Europeans live in more crowded areas with smaller roads and have learned their lesson. Most of America has huge, wide highways and don’t know any better. Drive around Boston, Chicago, or New York and you’ll see people properly zipper merging.
But everyone–everyone on the road, no matter how they act in the approach–must form this single lane to get through at all. The speed of traffic in the single lane, once there are no other lanes available, isn’t slowed by any previous merging behavior; it’s slowed only by traffic density. So that speed, whatever it is, is a hard cap. If everyone zippers together perfectly at the last moment, or if everyone zippers together three miles earlier, the speed through the pinch point will be the same. The only possible variation is in the level of aggravation in the approach, and whether some people are able/willing to transfer their “share” of the delay onto others or not.
I disagree – see my example above. If someone decides to merge at point A, while others are deciding to merge at various points B, C, and D behind him, you can end up stopping both lanes. In other words, I’m at point B and decide it’s time to merge, but the traffic upfront has slowed to let in the person at point A. Now, the traffic around me slows even more, possibly stops. The person at point C is now stuck between two lanes, leaving empty space in the closing lane, which is less efficient still. The person at point D also stops to merge in, now we have two stopped lanes, empty space in the closing lane, just an awful commute for all.