Subject: Re: lack of courtesy Re: A Left Lane Laggard Wants to Know

From: [email-masked] (Bill Newcomb)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 04:02:18 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Timothy J. Lee <[email-masked]> wrote:

>Yes, true.  I often see drivers in a forced merge situation (on ramp
>or lane ends) trying to prevent someone else who is ahead of them from
>merging in.

Yeah, that's me. Generally it's because traffic is heavy, and I,
having seen the merge half a mile back, dutifully got in the
non-disappearing lane while the traffic would still permit it. Why
should I let someone who isn't paying attention in front of me?
ESPECIALLY when they've hurtled down the disappearing lane, often
passing me in the process. Who's being more of a jerk?

If traffic  is light or the lanes, including the disappearing lane,
are all full and slow, I will let people in front of me. Ditto for
onramps. There's a difference, though, between being courteous and being
taken advantage of. I've got to get where I'm going, too...

--
-- 
Bill Newcomb      "I wish I was in East  St. Louis/being beaten and
[email-masked]    robbed in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart"   --GIMCP

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From: [email-masked] (mckay_michael)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 03:19:00 GMT

>passing me in the process. Who's being more of a jerk?

I used to think kind of like this too.  There are several big problems.  First
is the unaware driver (ie. all the regular drivers know that you have to 
merge in, but the occasional driver does not until he actually sees the sign,
by which time people like you will make things very difficult for him).
   Another more important reason is traffic flow.  What is the way to maximize
traffic through-put?  Your method of merging in early only really works
with light traffic (and than you hardly need worry about how people merge).
Once the traffic gets heavy, you [and people like you] are the reason that
the "disappearing" lane is moving faster.  The most efficent way to handle 
it is a smooth merge at an efficent point.  In other words, you are actually
making matter worse, both by merging early, and than by refusing to merge
smoothly.  That's my answer about "jerk'ness".  -mjm-

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From: [email-masked] (Jeff Bell)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 03:55:00 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] says...
>non-disappearing lane while the traffic would still permit it.

Thereby making everyone merge twice... 

> Why

The lane is there for merging, why don't you use it as intended?

-- 
-----------------
Jeff Bell - [email-masked]
Time Warner Interactive (We used to be: Atari Games - the REAL Atari)
Milpitas, CA USA
----* 33768 *----

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From: [email-masked] (Jeff Bell)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 03:55:00 GMT

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Newcomb)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 14:50:48 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>Thereby making everyone merge twice... 

Not sure what you mean--how do you "merge twice"?

>The lane is there for merging, why don't you use it as intended?

But people DON'T use it as intended--they use it as a passing lane.
I'm not talking about onramp merge lanes here--I'm talking about when
a lane goes away, for construction or just because the road gets
narrower. When there have been signs for the past two miles about it.
I'm talking about people who see the lane, merrily move into it and
pass me (because their bozo siblings up the road are already slowing
down the traffic in the continuing lanes) and then expect me to come
to a dead halt to let them in. No.

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From: [email-masked] (Tim Irvin)
Date: 25 Jul 1995 21:27:32 GMT

Bill Newcomb ([email-masked]) wrote:

: I'm talking about people who see the lane, merrily move into it and
: pass me (because their bozo siblings up the road are already slowing
: down the traffic in the continuing lanes) and then expect me to come
: to a dead halt to let them in. No.

Ah.  NOW I understand what you mean.  And now, I can agree.  I hate it
when people do that.  I'm always willing to be courteous to those who
seem to respect other drivers through their actions on the road.  The
only time these people get in with me is if they lurch forward at a 
rate that makes it unsafe for me to continue.

-- 
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From: [email-masked] (Steven Ruggiero [TEMP])
Date: 25 Jul 1995 22:51:17 GMT

Timothy J. Lee ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Corey Alambar <corwyn> writes:
: |Maybe it's just me, but when I learned to drive, COURTESY was the key.  When
: |you were in the right in traffic and there was a line of merging traffic, you
: |let ONE car out in front of you, but then again, so did everyone else.  If
: |someone came up behind you, you moived right.  If there was merging on the
: |right and you had a clear lane to the left, you changed lans to let the people
: |merging, merge.
: |
: |You don't know HOW often I see the purposefully exact OPPOSITE behavior.

: Yes, true.  I often see drivers in a forced merge situation (on ramp
: or lane ends) trying to prevent someone else who is ahead of them from
: merging in.

: Another discourteous behavior that I see is when car 1 is passing car 2
: on the left, and car 3 is behind car 1 wanting to go faster, car 3 will
: often not wait until car 1 is a safe distance ahead of car 2 to move
: right to let car 3 pass.  Instead, car 3 passes car 1 on the right,
: cutting unsafely close to car 2 in the process.  Seems that the drivers
: of car 3 in these situations are assuming that the car 1 is a left lane
: hog when car 1 is simply waiting to get far enough ahead of car 2 in
: order to move right.

And yet another that angers me.....

Scene: Traffic jam with cars merging onto the freeway from an on ramp.
Most merging cars attempt to get into traffic in a reasonable interval. 
There is always at least one person who feels his/her time is more important
and they traverse the entire merge lane and attempt to muscle in just
as the lane terminates at the last possible moment.

--steve

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From: [email-masked] (Steven M. Scharf)
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 20:37:31 GMT

Steven Ruggiero [TEMP] ([email-masked]) wrote:
: And yet another that angers me.....

: Scene: Traffic jam with cars merging onto the freeway from an on ramp.
: Most merging cars attempt to get into traffic in a reasonable interval. 
: There is always at least one person who feels his/her time is more important
: and they traverse the entire merge lane and attempt to muscle in just
: as the lane terminates at the last possible moment.

: --steve

But the opposite happens too. People crossing the solid line (illegally)
at the very beginning of the on-ramp.

At least the first scenario doesn't break the law and as long as the person
merges before the merge lane ends and becomes a shoulder, then there really
isn't anything wrong with it--sometimes people in the through lanes feel that
ANYONE merging MUST get in behind them.

What IS bad (and illegal) are people in the through lanes moving into the
merge lane, passing a bunch of cars on the right, then trying to merge
back on. I was so happy when I saw the CHP catch someone for that on 680
(and it was a Yugo doing it!).