Another thing I hate
Drivers who try to pass you as you're both coming down the entrance ramp to merge into traffic. Always happens in the merge lane, just when you need to be able to see behind yourself to tell if it's safe to merge -- and here comes Bonzo at 70, blocking your view. Hate to stereotype, but they're always males. Come on boys, NASCAR's only on the closed ovals, not on the interstate. Wait your turn, let the guy ahead of you merge, then merge yourself, and then pass.
posted by Allthenewsthatfits at 3:48 PM
13 Comments:
Amen, brother.
I don't care if you're stupid by yourself, but don't involve me in your stupidity!
Merge lanes are for matching speeds with the traffic of the road you are merging onto. If you are not doing close to the speed limit when you reach the road, than you deserve to get passed.
Spoken in the spirit of a true me-first, accident-causing road hog.
I agree with anonymous #2. Get your car or truck or semi up to speed, for God's sake, BEFORE you merge into traffic, or you're going to cause an accident.
If I'm behind someone who doesn't seem to know how to drive, I check for myself if anyone is behind us, and I make a decision - either fall way back and be ready to stop and help the accident victims, or gun it and get far out in front so I'm nowhere near the scene when it happens.
anon 6:42 here.... merge lanes are to make traffic flow freely...if you are not matching speeds you are holding up traffic and therefore more likely to cause and accident than those "men" that match the road speed on the on ramp because the difference between your speed and the speed of traffic is greater. This results in less reaction time.
http://www.wikihow.com/Merge-Onto-the-Highway-Without-Crashing
Read the first entry.....
I agree with the othe4r anon posters. Get up to speed or you are the one who is most likely to cause an accident.
If there is one thing I hate is brake lights in front of me on an on-ramp.
Gosh, I seem to have hit a nerve among the amateur hotrodders.
Actually, all you guys DO know that if you are on the highway YOU are required to yield to merging traffic, right?
And no one is REQUIRED to drive 55 (or 65 as the case may be). Although on the interstates I think you still have to drive at least 45.
After a quick check with the ISP, if you are coming down the on-ramp and pass a car in front of you on the ramp to get into traffic, you are breaking the law. Even if that leading car has not reached the 45 mph minimum.
YOU are more likely to cause an accident by zipping around a slower driver on the on-ramp than that slower driver is by trying to merge at a speed below the speed limit (though still at or above the 45 mph minimum).
Sorry for the bad news...
The subject wasn't people passing ON the ramp, it was in the merge lane. Once the ramp connects with the main lane, it's no longer a ramp, it's a merge area.
If I'm up to 65mph when I hit the merge area, I can merge into traffic. If I then perceive someone ahead of me still in the merge area, moving slowly and attempting to merge, I'll continue moving left into the inside lane, leaving them plenty of room to merge into the outside lane.
If I were already ON the highway in the outside lane and approached the slow person attempting to merge, I'd make the same move to the inside lane.
What you perceive as aggressive driving is necessary to keep you from getting a semi-truck grill in your back seat in more urban areas.
I kinda hafta ask: which is it?
Merging around you while you're in the merge lane (which is allowed under the law, as long as the passer doesn't exceed the speed limit)?
Or zipping around you while you're both still in the on-ramp approaching the merge lane (which is gonna get the passer a ticket)?
You seem to say both things in your blog entry.
Let me see if I can explain it more clearly.
Driver A is coming down the on-ramp, reaching highway speed and getting ready to merge into traffic.
Driver B is behind Driver A and is not satisfied with how fast Driver A is going. While in the merge lane, Driver B pulls out into the right traffic lane, says to himself, "Come on, Grampa, the game is on in ten minutes!" and accelerates to pass.
Mr. Baugher at 7:11 talks about moving into the left lane, but unfortunately there are rarely two lanes available, so let's leave that option aside for now.
So what do we have here? Driver B has accomplished two things: he has shortened the distance Driver A has to merge into traffic, and he has effectively blocked his view of whether traffic is clear. In other words, for all practical purposes, he is running Driver A off the road.
It may be legal to merge into the traffic lane ahead of somebody and pass him, but it's also rude and dangerous.
Funny how the bias here seems to be against driver B, with the assumption being he/she is speeding, driving erratically, not watching for traffic, etc...
Whereas it also seems to be assumed that driver A is driving normally, and being somehow terrorized by driver B's insane psychotic behavior.
Consider the possibility that driver A may actually be the erratic dangerous driver, trying to merge onto an interstate at slow speeds that could cause an accident. Driver B may consider his options to be either stop and wait for driver A to merge and clear the scene, or to try and get as far away from driver A as quickly as possible.
As for there rarely being two lanes available... there aren't that many merge lanes around here, and there isn't that much traffic on the roads that have them. I'd say more often than not both lanes are clear for quite a distance.
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