I wasn’t “taught” that explicitly, but I noticed enough semi drivers doing it for each other that I’ve started doing it when I’m in a similar situations (like when a truck driver signals a lane change ahead of me). Can’t say that I’ve ever noticed the double brake tap in response though.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of drivers that do this, or that pull enough to the left of their lane that it leaves room for right-turners to safely get around them on the right and make their turn without having to wait for the traffic lights to cycle.
OK, our highways generally have at least three lanes, and there never is a situation where there is no-one in the left lane for miles. Secondly, how is this a problem? If traffic is so light, just floor it when you’re merging (as you should well be, most of the time.) There are many places in downtown Chicago here where you’re merging into the left lane, traffic is really heavy, and you have very little on-ramp to make it, and yet everyone manages to figure it out most of the time. Thankfully, they’ve gotten rid of most of the really “interesting” merges in the past few years, but there were literally a few where you had maybe an 1/8 of a mile to fit your ass into the traffic flow.
I am flooring it and am on a collision course with the person in the right lane.
Although I can see the humor in no cars for miles and the only two there end up slamming into one another.
Then don’t floor it and saddle in behind the vehicle in the right lane (they shouldn’t have to alter their speed at all.) Are you in a situation where you have a constant stream of vehicles in the right line where it’s a pain in the ass to merge in? I’m honestly not being snarky here. I’m just having difficulty imagining the situation.
La Mesa in California has an somewhat infamous on-ramp to the I-8 … super sharp curve then immediate merge into the left lane’s 80 mph rush hour traffic … white-knuckle time with your steering wheel …
Wow. You guys get 80 mph traffic at rush hour?!?!?!
Otherwise, that sounds like the on ramps that were around until a few years ago on the Kennedy here in Chicago. It was just “gun it and pray someone lets you in!”
Oy vey, that is a nightmare of a ramp! When I lived in San Diego I’d do anything to avoid that mess when I visited my sis in LM.
No, they shouldn’t have to change their speed at all. And in fact they are perfectly within their rights to take no notice of me whatsoever. But the custom is to see someone coming up the on-ramp, and move to the left when it’s clear to do so. You don’t estimate whether you or they will make it, you just move over, so they will also not have to do any estimating or adjusting.
It’s minor inconvenience, one that earns a stuck-out tongue but not the full stuck-out tongue with eyeroll and head waggle. 
In Massachusetts pulling out and waiting to take a left is actually illegal, at least as described by the police officer in my recent drivers ed classes (when your teenagers take drivers ed here, you have to as well:rolleyes:) - it’s considered blocking the intersection.
All the while he described that, pointing to the lanes on a big road diagram, I nodded sagely and thought “you are out of your fucking mind, I’m not sitting back and waiting.”
OK, fair enough. I guess when I find myself in the right lane, I do try to get over.
The case in the OP said heavily trafficked highway. In that case moving to the left lane to make it easier to merge might be dangerous and also might make it tougher for you to get back in. You also can let someone merge into the right lane, making their life easier.
If no one is in the left lane, I agree with you.
Freeway example:
I’m toodling along at 65 in the right lane. Semi in front of me is doing 63. If fast moving traffic is coming up on the left, I slow and wait behind the truck to let them go by before pulling out to pass. I’ve never understood why some people want to pull out and hold up high speed traffic in the left lane while s-l-o-w-l-y passing the truck at a relative speed of 2 mph. I think it’s a dick move.
Not a law, but if I slow and wait for high speed bunch* to zoom by, then we’re properly sorted with the faster cars out front – easier for everyone.
*same rule for a single car, but it seems they’re usually in a group.
A few weeks ago I watched a bus stop in the middle of the road to ‘helpfully’ allow a waiting pedestrian parent with a pushchair and a toddler across the road. The back of the bus was smack across a mini roundabout, with a queue of cars coming from 3 directions, 'cos it was 5 pm, all blocked by the bus.
Of course, the pedestrian, who could clearly see the snarl-up the bus was causing, tried to wave the bus on, but nooo… the bus driver was determined to be polite… and beeped, smiled and waved in encouragement :rolleyes:
Probably the most spectacularly stupid display of attempted politeness I’ve ever seen.
Traffic Courtesies that aren’t Laws
The two-second rule.
I don’t see why you would need a study. A single lane is obviously slower than multiple lanes, or we wouldn’t have multi-lane freeways at all. It must be true that it’s best if everyone uses the multiple lanes as long as they are available. The optimum must surely be to merge as late as possible while leaving enough room to make the merge maneuver efficient.
Having said that, it may also be true that as an individual driver, conforming to the consensus merge position may be most efficient. In other words, if there is a consensus merge taking place half a mile earlier than necessary, you aren’t necessarily making things more efficient overall by unilaterally shooting up the empty lane. Failing to follow consensus behavior may make the merge less predictable and therefore less efficient.
No it isn’t. Anyone who has ever herded a group of children through a single door can tell you that a single line can keep moving at a constant speed. If two lanes wait until the last second to merge everyone has to slow down to allow alternating cars in. And the longer the two lines are, the more it progressively slows down until traffic comes to a near standstill. A zipper merge could work in theory if both lanes were spread out as if they were in one lane to begin with, but that just doesn’t happen in real life. When people get into the correct lane before traffic starts to pile up the line can keep moving at or close to the speed limit without a bottleneck. The people who are too impatient to wait in line are, ironically, slowing everyone, including themselves, down.
I just meant that there were a lot of people that needed to merge over. There was plenty of space for the person in the right lane to move over to the left.
I agree with every word of this, and there isn’t a highway trip I make of, say, more than 30 minutes where I don’t recall with envy the orderliness of driving on the Autobahn. Everything annoys me, from people passing on the right, people camped out in the middle fucking lane barely going speed limit (or driving side-by-side with the car in the right-hand lane), or people in the left-hand lane not passing.
I agree, if you’re in the right lane, and you can move to the left without impeding traffic, then that is a courteous thing to do at merge points.
If you are in the right lane and can’t move to the left for some reason, then keep traveling at the same speed. The merging traffic has to judge how much to speed up or slow down to slot in, if the traffic in the right lane decides to race the merging traffic (“I win if I’m one car ahead!”) or slow down appreciably (“the nice thing to do is to slam on your brakes to create a gap!”) that makes it much more difficult for the merging traffic to predict what to do. (I’m not talking about dropping speed a mph or two to provide some separation.)
Around here, I find people are often inappropriately courteous. In my 10 mile freeway commute there are two non-merge entrances, where the entrance lane continuous for a mile or more before exiting or merging. People will move out of the right (soon to be center) lane to let in the non-merging traffic. Some of the entering traffic will, of course, get out of the right lane immediately, as if it were a short entrance ramp, not a mile long lane.