I like to anger the people behind me by coming to a complete stop too and they're lucky that I don't use the 5-second rule that was taught to us ohhh those many years ago.

We also have the same problem with right turn on red AFTER STOP...somehow it has become yield or don't stop, go quick now! :impatient

Why didn't I get the memo on these rule changes?

 

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with all of the previous posts about the lack of education given to drivers here in The States.

Have any of you read the recent issue of Autoweek, where they brought this subject up? Truly an incredible read. And, if my memory serves correct, Autoweek is giving away free copies of that issue to anyone who wants one, as a public service.

www.autoweek.com

If any of you will be having a son or daughter getting behind the wheel soon, reading this magazine will be time well spent.

And another thing. A few years back I spent a bunch of time in Italy. One of the things that really impressed me there, was how they treated new drivers. All drivers that are just starting out, have to have a big huge letter L on the back of their vehicle for the 1st 12 months of vehicle operation. This is communicate to other drivers, that they are a new driver, and respect should be taken when getting near them. This would be tough to bring to the states, with our vanity-based driving habits...

 

At times I do the same exact thing. Liek my dear mom has said for years "The best revenge is living well". Be the better person has worked out for me after these last 34 years

 

We saw a lot of "L" signs when we were in Scotland. They asked us if we wanted one when we rented the car... we laughed and asked if they had an "F" for foreigner.... but we took the "L". Vanity or not, people gave us space.

 

Hehehehe F for foreigner....you ARE funny :D

 

OK, I read the first page of this thread, and cannot believe nobody mentioned the worst driving offense on the planet. I am considering petitioning for a law to make this one punishable by death. There is no excuse for it, and it drives me nuts (can you tell?). Here it is:

If you come to a stop at a red light, in the left lane of a multi-lane road, and you do not have a left turn-signal activated on your vehicle prior to stopping, you will be executed if you attempt to turn left when the light turns green.

 

Although I'm not necessarily proud of it, I've been in a total of six car accidents, none my fault. The first was when I was 17, and driving down an expressway where the speed limit was 45 and had stoplights every so often. As I approached the stoplight, a woman coming from the opposite direction was in the left turn lane, waiting at the red light. The light turned green, and I began to let back onto the gas (I'd be coasting up to the light) and as I approached the intersection, she FLOORED it into a left turn and WHAM, I hit her broadside. She feigned all these injuries until she was ticketed for failing to yield in a left turn.

Her response?

"I had a green light!"

Yes, but not a green arrow.

"Well...well...what's the difference?"

She miraculously recovered from her "injuries" in the next 30 seconds. Thank god I was only going maybe 30 instead of the full speed limit, and that no one was seriously hurt (my knee was split open, but that was it). She was in a Geo Metro, I seriously could have killed her.

The most recent was some jerk in a Jetta who, upon deciding my driving slowly (maybe 20 in a 25, I was looking for an address) was just too inconvenient for him, chose to try to pass me on the left...just as I found the address and was beginning to turn into the driveway. He hit ME broadside, in the lane of oncoming traffic. He tried to lie his way out of it but paint from my car was all over that side of the road AND my left turn signal was still blinging away when the cops pulled up.

I swear, I have a target on my back for these idiots. All the morons with no driving education seem to run into ME.

 

litabelle is absolutely right on this. Draw it out on paper. You are just choosing a worse merge point arbitrarily, which leaves more unused road, and pushes the traffic congestion back further. What if someone thinks YOU are discourteous because you didn't merge even earlier? You are being discourteous by refusing to let people merge, which is effectively YOU jumping the que. You are not the arbiter of where the merge should occur, the cones on the road are. Merging in an alternating pattern within a few car-lengths of the cones is the most efficient and safest way to proceed.

 

FINALLY someone who agrees with Litabelle on this one !

Sorry but you are seeing this all wrong. Nobody is arbitrarily choosing the merge point. The merge point is being chosen for us by the traffic and by our own sense of COURTESY. If everyone falls in when they come up on the traffic jam, everyone gets their rightful turn in order and everyone waits a similar amount of time.

Did you read the whole thread ? Lots of good reasons were mentioned why this behavior is so inconsiderate and selfish.

Edit for added point: Pushes the congestion further back ? The distance the jam extends is of no consequence. Whether you have 3 lines of 80 cars or 2 lines of 120 cars, it's still 240 cars trying to get through.

 

Look at it this way - why not merge where the traffic is loose and it's easier than try and have to fight your way in to where traffic is tighter and slower? It's called using your head.

 

It is only "loose" because not everyone is merging where you are. There will always be a point where traffic is "tighter and slower," that point is just pushed further back by more people merging early. You wouldn't have to "fight" to get in if people were courteous and used a zipper merge. It is called using your head.

 

I am guilty of this, in my average drive I drive through one stop sign, at a 3 way stop. I usually will passivly roll on through because the times I travel that road (after 10pm or about 11am) the road is a wasteland. I know its still bad, but its habit :(.

 

But what you're advocating isn't a Zipper Merge. You're advocating people go around the end of the zipper to the beginning of the zipper.

 

Even on "paper" it looks to me like you two are out of road...


The sooner the traffic merges into the two through-lanes, the sooner the traffic flows, barring any problems other than the three lanes to two scenario...it's plain logic, again you can't jam three lanes into two at the merge point without causing a back-up and with your reasoning, we now have three lanes deadlocked instead of two...nice job!

 

Stop with the personal attacks please. You are choosing an arbitrary merge point that is further from the cones. If everyone did that, it is indisputable that this leaves unused road. It is further indisputable that the same merge condition that you decry is arbitrarily moved back to this point, if everyone merged where you commanded them to merge. Draw it on paper: one with everyone merging zipper-style close to the cones, and one with everyone merging zipper-style at your arbitrarily selected merge point further away from the cones. Use the same number of cars in each case, and tell me which one has cars further backed up from the cones.

 

<<shakes head in amazement>>

 

First, there was no personal attack from me, we're discussing driving courtesies.

No one is suggesting that there is a point anywhere before the merge point that everyone must merge...it's a flow thing and once traffic in the two through-lanes have come to a complete or almost complete halt, then by you using that empty third lane only exasperates the problem causing those that chose to merge early to wait even longer now, while you are expecting to be allowed in ahead of them...that's discourteous, my friend.

 

Jeremy, I must commend you. You, my friend are truly a dying breed. The type of person that is willing to admit their mistakes. THANK YOU!!

As drivers who all have to share the roads with one another, I think we all need to take the same stance as Jeremy. ALL OF US do bad things at times. Myself included (please don't tell my girlfriend I said this ).

Good on ya Jeremy

 

You are advocating a zipper that moves further back constantly, thereby leaving more and more unused road. This pushes the congestion back further and further. With each car merging, your merge point moves back and thus arterials further from the cones are adversly affected. "Nice job."

 

The idea of a merge is to not stop traffic but to bring it together while keeping it moving. By cars moving all the way down to the absolute last possible merge point, they force other cars to stop or excessively slow down in order to let them in. Theoretically, if cars would merge sooner, traffic would slow down but would not stop due to the decrease in lanes. I saw this happen on a smaller scale recently in light traffic and it worked because people were merging in well ahead of time. This is why there are signs placed far in advance telling you to merge.

That being said, in real traffic conditions this never occurs because people don't heed the signs and they go as far as they can before they have to stop at the merge point and then they butt in subsequently slowing down miles of traffic behind them. I don't see it ever changing because most people just don't think. So, once traffic has already been stopped at a dead stand still, using the empty lane is perfectly acceptable because traffic is already stopped anyway.

 

I used to be a four-way stop roller. However, on site (I work at a gov't facility) we have a strict 30 mph rule and mandatory stopping at stop signs. You can be ticketed (and your dept has to pay the tix-hence unhappy boss). So I have become much more concious of coming to a complete stop.

 

My mom recently got a ticket for not coming to a complete stop. It was on a rural road very late at night with nobody else around. It's not even that she rolled right on through, she just didn't completely stop the car.

 

people who turn and cross several lanes doing so.

individuals who dont care to signal when they ought to.

 

If your major concern that the unused portion of asphalt will dry up and wither away than so be it...maybe, just maybe if that third lane were not there, then there would be no problem! By golly there it is, plain as day!

You do it your way and we'll do it our way, but when you meet me at the merge point, don't even think about merging in front of me, cuz the zipper is closed...good luck to you and see ya on the highway!

 

On the topic of proper merging...

http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/seatraf.html