I don’t understand these idiots who come to a complete stop on entrance ramps to highways. Is going from 0 to 55 the best plan for them once they see an opening? And they never see an opening! They just sit there as car after car whizzes past them, creating a long line of pissed off drivers behind them who actually know how to merge. I haven’t taken drivers ed in ten years but do they skip merging nowadays? I understand that no one uses their directional signals anymore, it’s a lost cause. But coming to a complete stop before entering a highway? Words desert me.
This past year, I found out there are some adults who still avoid highway driving and only use the highway when there’s no choice. I did that when I was 17 because I was a new driver and scared. But fully functioning adults who avoid highways in 2003? The hell?
If you don’t know how to drive in every situation, get the hell off the road because you’ll probably end up killing someone.
This is probably only true here in Pittsburgh, but a lot of the expressways here are so poorly constructed that there are stop signs at the ends of some of the on-ramps.
It’s only acceptable if there’s no merge area, or if you are unfamiliar with heavy traffic because you recently moved to the Big City after a lifetime of living in Small Podunk Town where “congestion” meant “Jethroe drank too much corn whiskey and parked his John Deere in the middle of Main Street again, and nobody wants to make him move it because he’s real surley when you wake him.”
Conversely, would you have them charge out blindly at top ramming speed, leaving it to the poor bastard already on the highway and in the slow lane to ‘get out of his way’? When they collide, your ramp is going to be impassable anyway, and you’ll be late to work.
Conversely, would you have them charge out blindly at top ramming speed, leaving it to the poor bastard already on the highway and in the slow lane to ‘get out of his way’? When they collide, your ramp is going to be impassable anyway, and you’ll be late to work.
No of course not. I would have them gradually increase their speed while checking their sideview mirrors for an opening. If there’s no opening, use the breakdown lane until they can get in. I don’t think this is an either or situation: complete stop or blind ramming speed. My concern about this driving idiocy has nothing to do with being late. I’m just concerned about people who can’t function on highways. They pose a real threat to other drivers.
Heh, driving issues are something of a peeve of mine.
What I do for these oblivious drivers is back off 100-200 feet (sometimes just crawling along) and make a run for it before they stop on the ramp. I have yet to have been stopped on the ramp due to drivers who can’t drive. I have even passed these fuckers while they are still on the merging lane. I admit, it’s mostly because I don’t want to get caught behind these fucked up drivers.
Case in point my sister’s friend (who should not be on the streets, this girl cannot drive and has already smashed 3 cars in 8 months!) stopped at the end of the ramp and didn’t move for 20 minutes! She was finally able to make it when a police cruiser, thinking she was in trouble, spoke to her, and then blocked/signalled traffic away until she got back on the road. Fucking sad.
WTF? Are you insane? You suggest people use the breakdown lane (aka “shoulder”) as another lane of traffic? What’s your next brilliant suggestion when queried as to what to do if there’s someone broken down in the breakdown lane?
Well, one would presume that if I’m parked at the top of the onramp, I can SEE anyone who might be parked in the breakdown lane, yes? And therefore either NOT use the breakdown lane, or use it in such a way as to merge before I hit the poor guy with the flat tire?
Don’t get me started. I live in south central Texas, right on IH-35, in an area which, in winter, becomes infested with elderly folks fleeing the northern snows.
I have yet to figure out how these old folks can maneuver a friggin’ Winnebago clear to Texas from Minnesota, but cannot maneuver a &# Ford Taurus onto an interstate without coming to a complete stop to wait for a &%$# break…
Monty, in Massachusetts the breakdown lane actually becomes another lane of traffic during rush hour.
Seriously.
I couldn’t believe it when I saw it - I guess broken down cars are shit-out-of-luck then.
Maybe it would help if we knew what city AmericanMaid is from. To me, I’d much rather see someone slow down or even stop then merge onto a highway (such as the Dan Ryan or the Kennedy in Chicago) then come in at warp speed and muscle into the right hand lane. No, sorry, MOVING traffic has the right-of-way, not MERGING traffic.
I’m going to stop there - I have a 70 mile roundtrip reverse commute from Chicago every day - I’ve seen it ALL. ALL.
No, I am not insane. I didn’t know MA’s use of the breakdown lane as an alternate lane isn’t a nationwide practice. Thanks for pointing that out. In my experience, the use of the breakdown lane to get onto the highway only lasts ~ 40 feet.
See, the thing is, the problem for merging onto highways goes both ways. Some people don’t know how to merge, and others don’t know how to let people merge. In an ideal world, people in the right lane of the highway have to expect that when approaching a ramp, people may need to merge onto the highway. Yet, how many times have we been merging onto the highway and people all of a sudden shoot up to the bumper of the person in front of them, just to prevent you from “butting in?” Assholes! That’s why the right lane is the “slow lane,” because traffic is merging in and you are expected to be prepared to reduce your speed by 2 or 3 mph for a few seconds when necessary to let someone in! Also, ideally, the people merging should have a clue and should be up to highway speed when they try to enter the highway. How many times have we seen people crawling up the ramp, who try to join the highway traffic at 30 mph? Or, horror of horrors, STOP on the damn ramp and try to merge in at 5 mph!? Of course, such a thing may be necessary when traffic is gridlocked, but not under ANY other circumstances.
People, motorists are least likely to let you merge in front of them if they see that you will be an impediment to their movement. If you use the ramp as it’s intended and merge in at highway speed (AND USE YOUR FUCKING TURN SIGNAL), people will let you in. If they don’t, usually the gradual movement of your vehicle toward the 1/2 car-length (aren’t you glad I didn’t say “car link” :rolleyes: ) space between them and the bumper of the person in front of them will drive the point home that they are being an asshole and YOU NEED TO GET ONTO THE ROADWAY. After all, if they’re in such a goddamn hurry why don’t they get over into one of the “fast lanes,” hmm?
ParentalAdvisory: Care to post something akin to a valid reference that the traffic on the highway does not have the right of way over the traffic entering from the on ramp?
ParentalAdvisory, you’re right. Absolutely. But, technically, so is austen. The IL Rules of the Road state that merging traffic is to yield to through traffic (http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/publications/rr/rr_chap03.html#right_of_way). It appears to be the rule, but ask 99.99999% of people on the highway and most will agree it’s not practical or safe (unfortunately, MOST people would PROBABLY say it’s fine if they’re the one on the highway, but then would change their answer and expect people to let them in if they were the one on the onramp :rolleyes: ). Nobody would get anywhere during rush hour if they had to sit around and wait for an opening in traffic large enough to 1) get their car out onto the roadway, and then 2) get up to speed quickly enough so as to not totally fuck up the rest of the highway for MILES behind them.
Uhh, dude? That’s how you’re supposed to do it, because if you aren’t moving at highway speed, you’ll never get in. It’s not “driving in the breakdown lane”, it’s “using about 50 feet of breakdown lane”. They teach this in drivers ed, for god’s sake.
How the fuck do you think actual honest-to-god broke down cars get back on the highway anyway? If there’s any traffic, they don’t pull out and get rammed from behind. You get up to highway speed while still in the breakdown lane so you can merge.
When I took driver’s ed in Virginia, we were taught to stay on the road and to yield to the traffic already on the highway.
Actual broken down cars that get resurrected use the breakdown lane of course. That’s completely irrelevant to the suggestion to race up it looking for a spot to enter traffic instead of using the actual on ramp and merging concept.
And in traffic school in Missouri and Kansas the rule is yeld the right of way for merging traffic. In other words get out of the right lane so the line of cars trying to merge can. I have seen State troopers pull over cars for no other apparent reason than the refused to follow this rule.
Seems this happens very rarely here, I only rarely see some older guy slowing down real slow, or even more rare is them stopping. Moving more than 100 feet in the breakdown lane in Missouri is also a ticketable offense.
My god…we don’t even call it any kind of lane in Pennsylvania. It’s just the shoulder. And driving on it is considered dangerous and to be avoided unless you have mechanical problems.