The best answer would be to avoid the road and take an alternate route to work/wherever if you can. Hell, most people have GPS nowadays, so they can find those alternate routes more easily.
Lets not forget about those who have the need to stop on the side of the freeway for whatever reason (Flat tire etc…) When you merge back onto the freeway from the emergency lane PLEASE PLEASE use the emergency lane to gain some speed BEFORE you pull out into the roadway. I have seen way too many misguided souls (Tractor trailers included) who just merrily ease their way into the first lane after being stopped in the emergency lane. Makes you wish you had blue lights on the top of your car and Police written on the side of it to pull them over and give them a good chewing out.
transman
Effective utilization of all the lanes will reduce the length of the bottleneck and, therefore, reduce the time spent before the resumption of full traffic flow. Merge at the latest moment plus courtesy and cooperation of drivers will make for a smooth alternate merge and minimize the delay for all.
Behavior suggested by The Elder Brother (Is that The Click or The Clack?) is a type of road rage and everyone is reminded not to drive like that brother even if his sense of injury were justified. But The Elder has chosen his lane, ought to learn to live with his choice and refrain from impeding the smooth flow of traffic. And we all ought to learn how to deal with our sense of entitlement when behind the wheel of a car. Dueling cars is not the way to deal with a grievance. SIMCHA
The previous reply was erroneously posted here. It responds to a question answered on the September 5 show. Tommy said it was immoral to wait for the last possible moment to
merge in a situation where one lane is ending. SIMCHA wrote
response number 22 here to that situation and posted it in
wrong place. Mea culpa SIMCHA
Oh boy. This situation is something I encounter quite often, thanks to the Caldecott tunnel and its reversible central bore. Seems like every time I go through, I have to deal with a shrinking freeway in at least one direction. If I’m unlucky, in both directions!
Now, full disclosure: I’m an early merger. If I’m out in the left lanes at all, it’s likely I’ll merge into the right lane right around the time we all see the signs saying the cetral bore is going the other way. However, those out in the left lanes until the last few yards, much as they may annoy me, are not doing anything wrong. They’re actually doing what we all should do: making maximum use of the roadway space available. The problem is the perceived arrogance because they tend, by the nature of the left lane, to be going faster than the right lanes, especially when it’s slowed down by folks like me merging early. The fact that it’s often SUVs, extremely well-polished pickups and BMWs doesn’t exactly help people’s attitudes, because like it or not, people judge cars. BMWs are perceived as arrogant, Dodge is more an instruction than a brand name, and so on.
So really, I’m part of the problem, and so are the other folks in the right lane getting resentful. Can I make a plea to the left-laners to take the Zen approach detailed earlier? Next time I’m there, I’ll give it a try - but only if it doesn’t feel likely to wind up with me stuck stopped between posts and 60mph traffic, because my 94 Volvo doesn’t have a stellar 0-60 time!
As for merging from onramps, the onramp is there so that you can get up to the speed of the prevailing traffic on the freeway. When possible, that’s how I use it - and when I’m stuck behind someone that doesn’t get that, it’s scary…
Read the fascinating book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt. He explains, quite clearly and correctly, that the most efficient (and therefore, because it will assist everyone to get through the road more quickly, in the end, the most moral - in my opinion) approach to an upcoming merge on the highway is for drivers to make use of all the lanes available until the merge point. Think about it…what is accomplished by having that one lane almost empty for up to a mile?
When we are in another state and on a long trip with 6 or 8 hour driving days, I don’t care what other drivers think of me so I will often use the open lane and merge into one lane when it finally must be done.
The Minnesota “Zipper” approach sounds like a good thing to reduce fellow driver hostility and admits to what most people would really like to do and is what I described above.
I'm chagrined that Tom & Ray haven't done their due diligence and referred to the apropos and well-researched book, TRAFFIC by Vanderbilt (referenced by ktweaver). There's an entire section devoted to merging where the author notes that the Texas Transportation Institute found that the single most common cause of stress on the highway was "merging difficulties."
Vanderbilt references one merge simulation that showed it actually took vehicles longer to travel through a merge zone using the 'early merge technique." He goes on to state that traffic engineers in Pennsylvania developed the "late merge technique" in the 1990s to alleviate aggressive driving. They employed the road signs; USE BOTH LANES TO MERGE POINT and, at the lane drop, MERGE HERE TAKE YOUR TURN. This offers, "a 15 percent improvement in traffic flow over the conventional merge," because the "full capacity of the roadway is being used and it is fair for everyone." The Minnesota DOT (referenced by RonLew) said, "multiple merging locations (create) unnecessary disruption in the traffic flow, slowing vehicles and creating more stop-and-go conditions than necessary."
The author also reveals the flaws in techniques such as the so-called "Zen answer" posted by wbeaty. (Who elected you traffic cop)? Everyone interested in safer, smoother traffic should get informed, read the book, and merge with the zipper.According to Penna. laws, You are in the right to maintain the lane of traffic you’re in! When you move to the left lane to allow a vehicle to merge from the right, you are in essence controlling traffic and that is illegal! Now that’s being technical, but it is the law!
I’ll make just one point: using a lane that is about to close (construction, etc.) – not talking about regular freeway merges here – does not increase the efficiency of the traffic flow. The zone with the obstacles/fewest lanes is the choke point – it determines the velocity of traffic in vehicles/minute or vehicles/hour. Someone cutting in from the lane that is disappearing does not improve the velocity of traffic through the choke point, and they probably diminish it by causing drivers already in those lanes to step on the brakes. Merging early and smoothly is the best way to maximize traffic flow.
Well, it certainly backs traffic up further, even if it doesn’t increase the time of the delay, so that you risk delaying people that otherwise wouldn’t be involved: that might have gotten off at the prior exit, for example. Also, I don’t get diminishing traffic flow “by causing drivers already in those lanes to step on the brakes.” We’re assuming the typical case in work zones, where traffic is stop-and-go entering the zone, so traffic is already at a crawl. (The optimal strategy in a virtually empty highway seems a trivial concern.)
Also, why would numerous states advise late merging unless it was more efficient? They wouldn’t seem to have a vested interest…
As I see it, there are two choices: merge late and run the risk of not getting let in right away, or merge early and trade-off this uncertainty for a greater average delay. Let individual motorists select the choice that best suits them (and, as usual, fortune tends to favor the bold.)
To me, merging early (beause one is timid) and then resenting the bolder amongst us is borderline childish.
The author also reveals the flaws in techniques such as the so-called “Zen answer”
What flaws specifically? The “zen answer,” which is also called “late merging zipper,” is simple, and is animated on my website: if you’re in the through-lane, you must refuse to punish cheaters; refuse to pack together.
Instead, constantly maintain an open space which allows merging at speed (early or late merging.) Drivers in the lane which is ending should find your empty space, drive alongside it at the same speed, then merge like a zipper when their lane ends. No racing to the end, since that screws up the zipper pattern. No merging early, because then the through-lane drivers would have to hit the brakes to open up the space again.
If drivers in the through lane refuse to provide spaces, and instead insist on packing together with no space between, then there is no zipper. The late-merging zipper requires open spaces in order to work. If we ridicule “Zen” and insist on our right to close gaps and punish cheaters, the gears can’t mesh, and everything grinds to a near halt, with close-packed drivers inching along at 2mph, then taking turns at the very end.
I drive a fuel truck and I am amazed at how almost no one even looks at what is happening ON the freeway until they are all the way at the end of the on ramp. The moment I turn onto the on ramp I am looking at the traffic lanes to see where I will be merging. I can always count on no one doing the same.
I am normally a very considerate driver. BUT I am one of those that zip up the empty lane, knowing a nice person will let me in (this is North Carolina after all).
My justification for being a schmuck goes like this… Why should I sit and watch all those schmucks get in front of me … delaying my trip potentially forever? Really, enough schmucks, you could sit there forever! AND I always believed what the State of Minn knows, filling up both lanes is more efficient. (Can’t wait to tell my husband this).
Also, in a non-freeway situation, I’ve seen the one lane backed up causing havoc at intersections, totally unnecessary if people would fill up both lanes.
If the state’s department of transportation would always put up a “merge here” sign, as they usually do in Pennsylvania, then we wouldn’t have to have this discussion.
Hi All,
Great discussion! I thought I’d chime in briefly with a minor, additional note from your pals at Car Talk Plaza.
Last weekend’s show was an encore edition of Car Talk. Since that show, the fine book Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do has made its way around Car Talk Plaza. Our humble hosts were interested to hear Vanderbilt’s analysis of traffic flow. (For anyone who hasn’t read it, despite the title, it’s very compelling!)
Below you’ll find a good, brief summary of Traffic’s findings regarding merging.
Thankfully, we have Tom Vanderbilt to add to our understanding of traffic issues, and don’t have to rely exclusively on, well, you know who…
Yours in successful and morally upstanding merging,
Doug Mayer
Senior Web Lackey
From: Maureen Kane Berg
Merging is Moral
Dear Car Talk Guys:
Although I?m always happy to ?waste another hour listening to Car Talk,? I don?t want it to actually set the country back. I was positively horrified by your response this past week to the caller who proposed that, where two lanes reduce to one, it is best to merge at the place where the reduction of lanes actually happens, rather than to queue up in one lane for a long distance before. Without even entertaining the argument, you jumped all over him in favor of mindlessly lining up early, going so far as to call it ?immoral? to travel up the empty lane in order to merge at the front.
Please read Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do. It discusses a number of studies that prove it is more efficient to merge at the place the lanes reduce. Failing to use the two full lanes as long as possible is simply a failure to utilize resources that are often already strained and limited and means everyone gets where he or she is going later. What?s moral about that?
Where I live, in the land of ?Minnesota Nice,? this problem is so bad, that when you get on at one entrance ramp, there is often a line of cars queued up in the left lane for an exit several miles up ahead. Thus, it is impossible not to merge in ahead of cars that have already been waiting. Why not do so as far ahead as possible? Of course, once everyone is properly educated to merge at the point of lane reduction, there will be no moral issue of bypassing waiting cars, because everyone will use the two lanes to the merge point, and you will be just as likely to be merging in as allowing another car to do so.
Sincerely,
Maureen Kane Berg
I also approve of wbeaty’s Zen approach, but here’s what’s always been my take on the merging question:
While I agree with Tom that it’s important not to let presumptuous drivers merge in at the front of the line, I’d like to note that it’s important to offer a carrot as well as a stick. When I come into a construction zone, for instance, and I see a sign that says, “Lane closed, merge left, 2 mi,” I immediately get into the left lane, but then, as a matter of courtesy, I always slow down and leave a gap in front of me into which one or two cars could merge easily, giving foresighted drivers in the open lane the chance to merge in before things get tight.
Despite this, I often see open-lane drivers dart ahead, past the space I’ve generously left open for them, obviously hoping to merge in even further ahead in the queue (at the very last minute, if possible). Well, when I reach that last sign that says to merge left in half a mile or less, the offer expires: I pull up behind the car in front of me, and NOBODY is getting in. They had their chance. If they passed it up hoping for something better, too bad!
My tactic for dealing with the abuse of merging behavior
varies depending on my immediate sense of
righteousness. Normally an extremely laisser faire sort of
guy who ignores the transgressions of idiots in a rush,
there are days when, for whatever obscure reason, I
become an indignant moral piss ant. On such days I feel
obliged to single handedly insure that Democracy works
as intended and always make sure there’s enough room
between me and the car ahead of me to allow my
changing lanes. If my rear view mirror reveals some BMW
barreling down the empty lane to get to the front I simply
pull out ahead of him ( I say “him” since such
transgressional behavior is usually male) and stop dead.
It’s very effective. Not only that but I know I am receiving
loud mental applause from the meek, appreciative hoards
behind me who had considerately merged many minutes
earlier.
Jim K
Millbrook New York
Well, listening to the show since 1999 and always enjoying it. Since I moved back to Germany, I have to listen online… However, this topic is interesting. In Germany we have the law to use the so called zipper principle. One car lets one merge. Works pretty well till you have the chicken drivers that merge 1 or 2 miles before the zipper zone (a few yards before the merging point. They create the free space to pass a lot of cars. If then I pass 50 or so cars and want to merge in the zipper zone and find angry guys that do not agree, they can actually be punished by the police force. The best of this story is, that actually happened to me 
Cheers to car talk… makes the driving more fun!
In response to the listener who was perplexed about merging traffic with a lane closed ahead sign . . .
While driving thru Pennsylvania this summer I came across some highway construction (does that surprize you?) on interstate 81. The first warning sign that some trick manuvering needed to be done to get in front of that 18 wheeler blowing black smoke, was a sign that said “Left lane closed 2 miles ahead”. Having a rather old and slow car I stomped the gas hoping I would be able to overtake the smoking beast. As luck would have it I finally did, only to discover yet another smoking semi in the right lane. Being an optomistic driver I punched the gas once again knowing that my 2 mile buffer was coming to an end and I would soon have to merge into the right lane. The next sign was a bit of a surprise to me since it is what I normally do in a merge situation. It actually instrucetd me to “Use both lanes up to the merge point”!!! Sure enough about 300 yards ahead, just before the abyss, the sign said “MERGE HERE”!!! There were 30 BMW’s and half a dozen Mercedes (all convertibles with the top down) in the left lane along with my beater, merging like they always do, and now I could join them with a clear conscience, sailing past a one mile long string of cars and truck whose drivers had obviously missed reading 101 in school. No one sneared at me and no one tried to block my merge, possibly cuz they din wanna argue with an old F250 with lots of scrapes and dents . . . once I got in line I’m sure the cars behind me were thankful since I burn used french-fry oil in my bio-machine. I noticed a lot of them pulling off at the next McDonalds off ramp!
This process sounds a lot better than using one lane for 2 or 3 miles. Once merged we all were able to go the speed limit . . . makes sense to me!