Screw asshole drivers who try to roll out of intersections into the flow of traffic

Wrong. Minor distinction: there is no merge “point” - the lane slowly fades away until there is no longer room for two cars to ride abreast (since the widths of the two cars and their drivers’ personal spaces vary wildly, this is a huge variable). When the sign says “lane ends, 1000 feet,” and you’re in the lucky lane, your job is to get over with all due haste, merging at or above the speed of traffic, so that you don’t have to hit your brakes and cause a back-up.

Life’s not fair – suck it up. Merging sooner may cause congestion if the traffic volume is already too high and those merged on are not paying attention, but if you wait until your lane is gone, and because of your own incompetence, you have to stop, you will not only cause congestion (too much volume in one lane), but you will also cause a “standing wave” back-up which can persist for hours.

The drivers behind you will also have to hit their brakes (because the “flow of traffic” is now moving more slowly) and the “zipper” maneuver that allows everyone to take a turn and merge politely at speed has been screwed up until two or three drivers all decide to sit still while the clusterfuck clears up, and then start a “fresh” zipper.

YES! Only here’s a better idea: if you’re in the lane that people are going to be merging into, why not move over one more lane, and leave a car-sized hole for one of your unfortunate neighbors to merge into?

Wow - you’re right, those guys are assholes. Except, apparently, in Pittsburgh, where it’s considered a local courtesy to wave the first two or three left-turners through if you’re opposing them with a solid green. Some Pittsburgh drivers assume that this courtesy will be granted, causing near-accidents; some of them go so far as to assume it will be granted in other cities, pissing off people like you and me. Boy howdy!

You’re right. This is a very strange phenomenon that I have only found in Pittsburgh. It seems that in the Steel City, proper etiquette is to wave through at least the very first car turning left, and perhaps one or two behind it. The fourth car should always stop and wait for oncoming traffic to go through before turning left. It’s been that way here ever since I’ve been driving, and I don’t know that it will ever change.

The mistake is that those who are really unfamiliar with leaving Pittsburgh believe that this ‘wave on left’ rule applies elsewhere and follow it without any indication that the other drivers are waving them on.

Also in Pittsburgh, you will find the ‘tunnel mysticism’ whereupon exiting the Fort Pitt or Squirrel Hill Tunnels, a driver will, for no apparent reason, slow down to a speed very similar to a mid January arctic molasses flow, despite the fact that there is nothing but open highway on the outside of the tunnel (exiting downtown). This strange bit of voodoo happens day or night, raining or dry, snowy or clear, and due to the fact that many of these people repeat the practice every single day, it makes me wonder if they think that at the end of the tunnel there will suddenly one day be a gigantic Lexan wall that they will crash into, or if cars just disappear into oblivion after leaving the safe confines of the tunnel.

And don’t even get me started on the damn bridges.

OP here, I don’t think you got my point so I will rephrase.

What’s happening is this: you are happily driving in the right lane of a fairly major road. Ahead to your right is a side street. There is another car in that side street.
What that driver should do is roll up; stop, let you pass because you have right-of-way, and after you pass, make the right turn into the major road.

Instead, they continue to roll, breaking the plane of the intersection, and start turning right so that they wind up in your lane about a millisecond after you pass them. It gives the appearance that they don’t see you coming and that they might actually roll into you (t-bone as some other poster described it). The fact is that they interfere with your right-of-way because you either have to gun-it to blow past them, or swerve left to avoid them.

What’s more annoying is this is done quite often when there isn’t anyone else behind me; it’s not like they’re trying to sneak into short break in traffic.

Here on Long Island this seems to have become a standard maneuver.

Not in this country. Sorry.

Half right. The lane is open, but staying in it right to the end causes more problems than it solves. People should change lanes as soon as they can do so safely.

Objection! Supposition. I don’t drive bumper to bumper. (I will occasionally prevent somebody from entering my lane, but only if the person is being a fuckhead. :D) As to the unfair advantage, that’s something those asshats seem to think they deserve. I personally feel they don’t.

Here at least, you’re correct

I do agree with you on this one. If there’s no left turn signal at an intersection jackrabbiting can be dangerous and really pisses me off too. Of course, so does the practice of 3 cars turning after the turn signal has changed, even though it means cutting off the people who now have the right of way to proceed forward.

This reminds me of a one time friend. He used to contend that it was perfectly alright, and necessary for 3 cars go through an intersection after the light had turned red. His reasoning was that was the only way to keep traffic flowing. Otherwise fewer cars would get through at any time and traffic would stack up more.

He was always better at math than me, but it only took me a second to see the flaw in his logic. When 3 cars go through an intersection after the light has turned, at least 3 cars are prevented from entering on the cross streets, creating a cycle that’s out of time with the lights. Taking reaction time into account, this could make things even worse than if people would simply stop when the light is red.

No, I’m pretty sure, (and he’ll correct me if I’m wrong) that what he was trying to tell you was, in other words, that’s not how the law, or insurance and car accidents work. Unless a person is DRASTICALLY maimed and injured, there’s no money in car accidents, even if the other driver is totally at fault.

I realize that this was just a rant on your part, but you might want to check into insurance and traffic laws, as well as the worth of vehicles and how a person comes out on the other side even when they’re totally innocent in the accident.

For instance, there are these lovely people called “the uninsured motorist”. Unless you have uninsured motorist coverage, that other person doesn’t end up paying anything, unless you sue them. And the uninsured are usually uninsured because they’re flat broke, so “suing their asses off and ‘owning’ them”, AIN’T gonna happen.

Not to mention, even if you DO have uninsured motorist coverage, your coverage will only pay bluebook on your car, so if you’ve got a new vehicle, and don’t have “Gap insurance” and are “upside down” (meaning you owe more than the car is worth) on your car, YOU, not the scum uninsured motorist, are the one who is going to be “owned” and “paying out the ass”.

It’s not right, but it’s reality, you better check into it before you decide that “allowing someone to hit you” is a road to riches.

I wrote THAT all wrong :smiley:

Where it says “Unless you have uninsured motorist coverage, that other person doesn’t end up paying anything, unless you sue them.”

What I MEANT to put was you don’t end up GETTING anything, the uninsured motorist doesn’t pay if you have uninsured motorist coverage, YOUR insurance company does. So basically then, becuase they’ve had to pay out money on your behalf, now YOUR insurance company becomes “your enemy” so to speak, they’re acting as the uninsured motorist’s insurance company, and fighting you tooth and nail for every cent.

So as others have said, it’s NOT a matter of “some idiot driver hits you and is at fault, and you get to sit back and rake in the bucks”.

From experience, I have to disagree. I don’t see any congestion up here (where people merge before the lane ends). But I saw it ALL THE FRIKKIN TIME in Austin. People would race up to where the lane ends, and then slam on their brakes because a car happens to be where they wanted to merge into. It’s not that people wouldn’t let them merge, it’s that these jackasses would be going so fast that all of a sudden there’s someone beside you trying to merge into your car. Trafiic’s thick in Austin - I put my turn signal on about 3 miles before my exit and wait for a spot to open up. Only merging early stops the congestion. This is a neat trick they know in Chicago, but not Dallas or Austin.

Example: The last time I drove from Austin to MI, there was construction on a highway in Dallas. HUGE signs saying “Left Lane ends, 5 miles.” “Left lane ends, 3 miles,” etc. Jackasses wait until the last minute to try to merge. Then a pile-up happens. Some nice fool (iusually me) will slow down enough to let a stopped person over. Other nice fools slow down to let jackasses in. Before I know it, it takes me an hour to go 5 miles to my exit. Now, if people had started merging at that Left Lane Ends sign 5 miles before the lane ends, we wouldn’t’ve had this problem. They’d be in the flowing traffic instead of stopped in the left lane.

And I’m not sure what you man when you say that merging soon gives the folks in the closing lane an advatage. Maybe I’m reading it wrong.
There’s one incident from HS that I still get pissed over.

I drove to school every morning. On the way, there’s an intersection that has two left turn lanes. I’m in the rightmost left turn lane, because after I trun left, I only go a short distance before turning right. There’s a UHaul truck beside me. Light turns green, I turn left, only to have the UHaul end up in my lane halfway into the turn. I slam on my brakes, honk my horn (which just about breaks my fingers, since it sticks somethin’ fierce), and sit in the intersection as he pulls into my lane. He wasn’t swinging wide, he CHANGED LANES in the middle of the intersection.

And last Nov, when I was in Austin, I was driving down the frontage road, getting ready to get onto I-35. This guy gets off the highway, and starts pacing me. There’s one lane for folks getting off the highway and for folks getting on (if you exited and stayed in this lane, you’d just get back on the highway, as it ends with the exit). I have my turn signal on. I try slowing down by about 10mph, thinking I’m blocking him in. He stays with me. I stay at this speed, thinking maybe he was slowing down to try to get behind me. Does he speed up? Hell no! So I speed up, trying to get past him. A beat later, he speeds up and paces me again. I’m about to kill someone. Finally, he gets over into my lane, RIGHT where that lane ends by going onto the highway. So I missed my exit. Jackass.
I have a ton of horrible driver stories, heh. And I’m sure I’ll have more once I move to Austin.

But here’s one from up here:

Around midnight a few weeks ago, I’m coming home from the gas station. In the left lane. There’s a truck beside me, in the right lane. We get to these slightly bumpy railroad tracks, and the truck swerves to the left, almost hitting my car, apparently avoiding the bumps. I had to jerk my car left to avoid being side-swiped. Why didn’t this guy go right, where there was plenty of room before the curb? WHY? Did he not see my car?

Sigh. I’ll stop now.

OK I think we are on basically the same page here, just I didn’t go into enought detail. The shockwave is caused by people not allowing an anternate merge in BOTH lanes, and does indeed happen at the merge point. BUT having a good driver who leaves enough space infront to allow such an alternating merge IS EXACTLY THE TYPE OF DRIVER WHO SHOULD BE IN THE LANE WHO IS ENDING. They understand NOT to race to the merge point, but to drive at approximatly the same speed as the other lane. When a spot is sighted the driver can drive along side where he will merge at the merge point, if he gets over he allows bad drivers to get ahead of him and cause that shockwave we both don’t want. One good driver in the ‘shorter’ lane can correct for many drivers who try to beat out other drivers.

I hate when two lanes close into one for the exact reasons listed here. I agree with the “merge before the end” camp, but I dunno, to me there are certain “rules”. One intersection near my house has two lanes converging into one, and there’s always the assholes trying to gun it to get in front of me when there’s plenty of room to merge in behind me. It seems to me, the unspoken rule is, if your front bumper is in front of my front bumper, I let you go ahead of me. If not, then you wait behind me.

I especially hate when driving on the highway, and traffic begins to slow for no immediately apparent reason. Once you round a bend, you see that one lane has been closed down for some reason; accident, construction, what have you. As soon as I see that the lane I am in has closed down, I begin to merge into an open lane. That just makes sense. I hate the assholes who REFUSE to let me into the open lane for no reason other than they’re assholes. We’re driving 5 fucking miles per hour, shithead, what is braking for 30 seconds going to cost you? I mean, if EVERYone did it, the traffic jam wouldn’t be here in the first place! I’ve perfected the art of staying far enough away from the vehicle in front of me that I rarely ever have to come to a stop in super slow traffic - standstill obviously doesn’t count here - and even accomodate that wants to merge in front of me. It’s a necessary skill, IMHO, when you drive a standard and don’t want to have to keep clutching, and makes life so much less stressful.

And while I’m at it, someone tell me… When stopped at a traffic light, cars tend to bunch up on each other - inches off each other’s bumper. I like to stay a reasonable distance behind… Now when the light turns green, car 2 has to wait until car 1 is far enough away before car 2 can resume driving. But if I am car 3, because I’ve left enough room in front of me (we’re not talking a huge distance here) I can go basically at the same time as car 2, because I don’t have to wait for him to pull ahead of me - I’ve already left myself the room. Doesn’t this make sense? Am I missing something here? If everyone did the same thing, couldn’t twice the cars make it through the intersection? If I’m car 10, and everyone does it the “normal” way, I’m probably not even in motion by the time the light turns red again. I dunno, it just seems to make sense to me, but I could be wrong.

Oh and one last rant. There’s a light at the end of one of the highway exits. The main road that the exit empties on to is extremely busy, with a traffic signal about a quarter of a mile from the exit light. Making sense so far? Unfortunately, the exit light is not marked “No right on red” so what happens is, traffic from the exit squeezes onto the main road while the exit light is red, and the light further up is also red. Then traffic from the main road backs up (and in-fucking-evitably blocks the intersection at the exit) until the Exit’s light turns green. Now there’s nowhere for the traffic still waiting on the exit to go, because there’s 4 cars in the intersection, and a quarter of mile of traffic backed up behind the other light - which has also just turned green. By the time the intersection clears, the Exit light is red again, so is the light further ahead, and the whole cycle repeats itself. I need to find the traffic planner responsible for this design and hang him/her by some very sensitive body part.

How about the twits who have no concept that a red light means you are supposed to stop? Here in Houston, if your light turns green, you have to remain at a full stop for about 15 seconds while cross traffic finishes running the red light. I’ve counted as many as 8 cars at a time.

Or the jackass who decides to turn left when the left turn green arrow comes on. The only problem is that he’s in the far right curb lane when he does.

My next car is going to be a Sherman tank. With a functional cannon…

2 second following distance? I don’t know about the laws of physics where you’re at, but 2 seconds behind another vehicle while on the interstate, while common, isn’t at all safe. If someone in front of you blows a tire going 70mph and you’re two seconds behind him/her, welcome to an accident which now involves you!

It’s not about being scared, it’s about being safe. Just because you’re willing to take that risk doesn’t mean everyone ought to.

If traffic is moving along at a steady pace, and I’m in the left lane and some idiot goes barreling by me on the right and wants to squeeze into the 1.5 car-length space I’ve maintained between me and the guy in front of me (let’s say we’re going 45mph), you better believe I’m going to accelerate and close that gap. If I’m going to be driving unsafely close to someone, I’d rather do it on my terms than rely on super-fast numb-nut who wants to creep up the line of traffic and make me decellerate.

I encountered something like this on my way back from lunch today. Driver pulled out of a hotel parking lot into a one way street, which happened to be one-way in the same direction I was walking. The fool practically looked right at me and still pulled right up to the road, blocking the sidewalk! I’m 6’2", ~300 lbs., he must have seen me coming.

I walked behind him, brushing my shopping bag against the rear of the car, and headed on toward my job. I must have walked a hundred feet when the jackass who had blocked the sidewalk finally went by! What fucking difference would it have made for him to wait for me to go in front?

Just another example of why I don’t trust drivers around here, too many of them are so fucking clueless.

In Driver’s Ed (California, 1985), they taught me that 2 seconds is the correct safe following distance. Around here, one second or less seems to be more common.

I may be guilty of this - at first I thought “why on earth would anyone attempt to sneak into an intersection…”
but then I thought, “Right on red” or “Right out of a two exit parking lot” when the car to my left is too damn big for me to see around (or “There’s a reason that sign says ‘no parking within 30 feet’…I can’t see oncoming cars thanks to your blocking my sightline”). And so, yes, my car might be observed to “creep” farther forward than it should - but it’s not hoping that you can’t see me, but that I can see you - and not just blindly drive into you while trying to move my car that did not come equipped with a periscope.

I don’t remember what the figure is, but I know it’s relative to your speed. If a person is traveling at 65mph, that’s 95 feet/second. Now, I know that drivers don’t keep anywhere close to that amount of distance. Heck, I’m fairly sure that I don’t drive at 200ft distance on the interstate a lot of the time.

But, in reference to badmana, two seconds (at 65mph) is about 20 car lengths. Probably more than would please him/her.

I think the point is that people assume that for fast driving a few car lengths is a ‘safe’ distance. And it is, as long as nothing goes wrong. And if I happen to not want my life to depend on the fellow in front of me not getting a blowout or whathaveyou, I’m going to keep a fair distance behind him. If it pisses off the guy behind me because he sees there’s all this ‘wasted’ space, then that’s his problem, and if he says I ought to get off the fuckin’ road, then that’s his problem.