
Drivers Who Merge at the Last Minute May Be Annoying, but They're Right - sndean
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/traffic-lane-zipper-merge.htm
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OscarCunningham
Perhaps one technique to help people do this would be to draw signs that
suggest two lanes merging rather than one lane ending and one continuing.

So for example if you have some flashing lights to mark the end of the lane,
also put some flashing lights on the side of the road next to the other lane.
That way people think "these lights are on both sides of the road, squeezing
us down into one lane" rather than "these lights mark the end of that lane,
while this one continues"

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bryanlarsen
This may be right when the lane you're merging out of is actually ending, but
most of the time when people are forced to merge out of a lane it is because
they're merging out of an exit lane. If you merge late out of an exit lane
you're jamming up the exit lane. Don't do that.

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mcnamaratw
This seems hypothetical and click-baity to me. In the parts of the US I've
been to, here's what happens: most people do a (more or less) zipper merge
"too soon" at a pretty good speed. A few people race past (too fast to merge),
then stop (too slow to merge) at the last possible point. Everyone stops,
again and again, to let them back in.

I think a perfect zipper merge requires matching speeds. I don't see how
zooming ahead and stopping can help, and the article doesn't suggest any
ideas.

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mindslight
This is just standard custom in the Northeast - lanes don't end, they merge.
Keep moving while zippering, and the unfairness will be limited to a maximum
of one car (someone who really wants to push it).

The downside is that the same philosophy is applied to eg exit only lanes.
You'll get a 3-lane highway with a backed up simple exit, and only the
leftmost lane is passable (with speed hindered by a constant worry that a
stopped car will try to change lanes into you).

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buserror
My method is a mix of both! I merge "pretty late" but not right at the limit
so I stay polite, and then I put my car in the middle so you can't have an
Audi driver try to wedge themselves and annoy everyone else.

Where's the limit? I'd say 10 cars or so, blink, if someone is unhappy about
you, let them go, and find the next polite guy who realizes you are not trying
to be a pain...

~~~
NickBusey
Putting your car in the middle is such a dick move. You are not the police.
Stay in your lane.

Someone you think may be 'annoying everyone else' could be in a legitimate
hurry for any number of hundreds of reasons. Even if they aren't, using both
lanes till merge point is still far more efficient as the article says, and
the actual law.

By taking up two lanes you are not only preventing people from following the
actual law and driving more efficiently, but you are yourself breaking the law
and creating a potentially dangerous situation.

~~~
buserror
Aren't personal attacks frowned upon on HN?

By the time I'm merged, I _am_ at the junction point, and I'm not preventing
anyone with flashing lights from passing, that's why people use 'mirrors' \--
well, most of them anyway, especially those who aren't standing on high
horses.

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oxplot
Majority (borderline everyone) here in Australia seems to be afraid to speed
up to highway speed before merging and when the merge lane is short, they end
up coming to a complete stop because they can't find a gap to for in, in time.
Only if they understood basic physics: It's the delta of the speed that makes
an accident dangerous not your absolute speed.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Speed makes an accident dangerous: speed is kinetic energy.

Delta speed makes an accident more likely, not more dangerous.

~~~
riffic
You mean crashes.

[https://www.enddd.org/end-distracted-driving/drop-the-a-
word...](https://www.enddd.org/end-distracted-driving/drop-the-a-word/)

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makecheck
A lot more effort needs to go into road design too though. The best merge is
the one you never even need to do.

For instance, I’ve seen ridiculous things like roads that open up two new
lanes, only to remove _BOTH_ of the new lanes within a half mile or so. (There
wasn’t even an exit in between, just space they decided to use.) Predictably,
that creates an insane cluster of traffic every single day in rush hour that
could have been 100% avoided by simply not offering either of the bait lanes
to begin with!

I also do not understand why so many merges have one tiny sign as the ONLY
indication of a merge, sometimes over a very short distance. What, you just
spent a few million on a road and you can’t afford 2 or 3 signs per merge? Put
them up! Give people every chance to move. Surely it can’t hurt.

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jdpedrie
I've known about "zippering" for several years, and I know it makes sense. I'm
still almost always an early merger though, because I still have an irrational
anger at people zooming by to the front of the line. Despite knowing they're
right, I do the wrong thing, because I know the other early mergers will most
likely be angry at me. Although the dataset in my case is just me, it seems
fixing the social expectations will be rather difficult, given that even
people who know the right way to merge do the wrong thing. I'd change, but
only if everyone else did too.

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AznHisoka
It also is more safe because there is only 1 obvious choice when you are the
car behind the one trying to merge: slow down and let him in. Otherwise the
car has nowhere else to go.

~~~
therealidiot
That's not stopped people around me deciding that they want to race me into
the hard shoulder because my lane is closing

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icodemuch
Still not 100% convinced, but if it's true this is an interesting example of
common conception / human nature steering us in the wrong direction. This
problem won't be an issue with driverless cars...

~~~
gaius
Every Greek knows what is right, but only the Spartans do it

[http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/you-will-be-
judge...](http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/you-will-be-judged-on-
approach-to-m25-from-m4-warns-god-2015070899977)

