Road Rage - Small bump leading to assault.

[T0MMY]

Centurion07 said:

That right there has just confirmed you really don't understand this entire discussion.

I'm genuinely interested in what you mean there. As far as I can see the argument that this is not a form of queue jumping is that it is the correct way to do things according to the system imposed by the highway code.

If that's wrong, what is the reasoning that this isn't queue jumping?

[Centurion07]

T0MMY said:

Centurion07 said:

I don't recall agreeing with that at all. I agreed when I said you're right about it not speeding things up.

I was referring to me saying:

1. It seems that merging late cannot help the overall time to get traffic through the delay, just the length of road used, which is often not a problem (as far as I can see and no one has picked a hole in my assessment of that yet). In fact it's more likely to increase the delay for everyone, and definitely increases the delay for the people that would have been ahead of you. In the case of a junction being blocked, obviously you use all the road available.

And you saying:

You know WHY nobody has picked a hole in it yet? BECAUSE IT'S BLOODY WELL CORRECT!! IT'S NOT ABOUT THE SPEED OF TRAFFIC THROUGH THE RESTRICTION.

Ah fair enough. I was agreeing with everything bar the "likely to increase the delay for EVERYONE" bit.

[Centurion07]

T0MMY said:

Centurion07 said:

That right there has just confirmed you really don't understand this entire discussion.

I'm genuinely interested in what you mean there. As far as I can see the argument that this is not a form of queue jumping is that it is the correct way to do things according to the system imposed by the highway code.

Your bar example is the equivalent of driving down the hard shoulder to get to the front. If there was another, clearly marked lane/queue/whatever to gain access to the single barman, then it is perfectly justified to use it rather than joining the back of the longer queue. That said, it's still a little irrelevant as keeping a bar queue in as small a space as possible is not usually the objective whereas with merge-in-turns on multi-lane roads, it is!

[T0MMY]

Centurion07 said:

Your bar example is the equivalent of driving down the hard shoulder to get to the front. If there was another, clearly marked lane/queue/whatever to gain access to the single barman, then it is perfectly justified to use it rather than joining the back of the longer queue. That said, it's still a little irrelevant as keeping a bar queue in as small a space as possible is not usually the objective.

I have to disagree I'm afraid. The point about the hard shoulder is that you're not supposed to drive down it, in fact it is of course not legal to do so.

There is a clear system in most bars that the "queueing area" is the entire length of the bar. Not only is this "allowed", it is "correct". As people were not doing that I responded to what was actually happening rather than what should have been happening; that's the similarity for me.

I fully understand the need sometimes to keep the queue in as small an area as possible...I'm talking about the situations where this wouldn't seem to matter, typically on motorways, which is where you tend to see the one long line and the pissed off HGVs trying to block the other lane etc. In built up areas you do tend to see two lines IME.

[Centurion07]

T0MMY said:

I fully understand the need sometimes to keep the queue in as small an area as possible...I'm talking about the situations where this wouldn't seem to matter, typically on motorways, which is where you tend to see the one long line and the pissed off HGVs trying to block the other lane etc.

As I said earlier, YOU do not know the rate of traffic JOINING the back of the queue vs the rate of traffic LEAVING the front. YOU are not in a position to be able to say "it's ok, this queue will never reach all the way back to that last junction/roundabout/whatever so it'll be ok if everyone just uses this one lane as early as possible.

As has been mentioned numerous times before, WHO decides WHERE everyone starts merging in your situation anyway? It's a different place for everybody. FOR THAT reason, it's best to use all available lanes and merge where the road-planners have decided traffic NEEDS to merge i.e. as close to the restriction as possible. No ambiguity, no queue-jumping, merge HERE and be on your way and at the risk of repeating myself, if ALL the lanes were used to queue, why would anybody get pissed off? After all, nobody is gaining an advantage as nobody can get in front of anyone else unfairly...

Edited by Centurion07 on Saturday 15th November 12:59

[T0MMY]

Centurion07 said:

As I said earlier, YOU do not know the rate of traffic JOINING the back of the queue vs the rate of traffic LEAVING the front. YOU are not in a position to be able to say "it's ok, this queue will never reach all the way back to that last junction/roundabout/whatever so it'll be ok if everyone just uses this one lane as early as possible.

As has been mentioned numerous times before, WHO decides WHERE everyone starts merging in your situation anyway? It's a different place for everybody. FOR THAT reason, it's best to use all available lanes and merge where the road-planners have decided traffic NEEDS to merge i.e. as close to the restriction as possible. No ambiguity, no queue-jumping, merge HERE and be on your way.

I'm not sure I've ever really disagreed with the idea that it would be good if everyone merged at the end (although I did disagree with the idea that that is actually quicker overall). A neat zip merge system would work fine, as long as it really was neat.

As I've said countless times though, we're discussing what is actually happening, not what should be happening. People tend to decide to form one queue in open road situations (not so much in town), we're discussing the etiquette of dealing with that situation and why people get annoyed by others ignoring it.

[andrewrob]

I have a confession. I went to McDonald's earlier and used the drive through, there were two lanes, the left one had 2 cars in, the right one had no cars in. I chose the right one, they took my order, and I drove straight into the merge point before the other two cars (front car was still giving their order).

Now Tommy using your method of thinking I have queue jumped, would you join the left lane and wait behind the other two cars?

[T0MMY]

andrewrob said:

I have a confession. I went to McDonald's earlier and used the drive through, there were two lanes, the left one had 2 cars in, the right one had no cars in. I chose the right one, they took my order, and I drove straight into the merge point before the other two cars (front car was still giving their order).

Now Tommy using your method of thinking I have queue jumped, would you join the left lane and wait behind the other two cars?

Is the confession about going to McDonalds as much as the queue jumping?

It's a little different as there were two queues for two separate ordering points. If there was only one and you tried to merge in front of the other guy who had been waiting behind car 1, do you think he would have felt you were queue jumping?

[andrewrob]

T0MMY said:

Is the confession about going to McDonalds as much as the queue jumping?

It's a little different as there were two queues for two separate ordering points. If there was only one and you tried to merge in front of the other guy who had been waiting behind car 1, do you think he would have felt you were queue jumping?

I don't think it is different. I got there last, but got my food first. I don't know how the other person felt but I was using the system the way mc Donalds designed. In the same way I use the road the way it was designed.

Going back to your comment earlier about merges on motorways not mattering as much, how long is it ok to make the queue by? Past the next junction?

[Garybee]

TOMMY - They'll argue that black is white all day long if it means they don't have to acknowledge that there are benefits to using the road as you describe. You've done really well to remain polite whilst others have descended to name calling. I think they're lost causes though.

[Centurion07]

T0MMY said:

We're discussing the etiquette of dealing with that situation and why people get annoyed by others ignoring it.

No we're not. EVERYONE on this thread knows WHY the muppets in the long single queue get annoyed. There's no discussion to be had on that point. The discussion is to how to stop anyone getting annoyed, and that's by filling the empty lane/s, as is supposed to happen.

As regards the etiquette of the situation, why the hell am I going to inconvenience 1) myself and 2) people who's journey is being hindered by a longer than necessary queue blocking their roundabouts/junctions etc further back, just so as not to upset a bunch of stupid people who don't realise they should use all the available lanes? It's people's bloody-mindedness to adhere to this etiquette that causes the bloody problem in the first place.

[Centurion07]

Garybee said:

TOMMY - They'll argue that black is white all day long if it means they don't have to acknowledge that there are benefits to using the road as you describe. You've done really well to remain polite whilst others have descended to name calling. I think they're lost causes though.

Please enlighten the class as to what these benefits are....


ETA: actually, save yourself the bother, I already know the answer.

Edited by Centurion07 on Saturday 15th November 15:08

[Centurion07]

As I'm totally bored of pointing out the bloody obvious now, here's the link to another thread with various examples of signs from other countries, videos, quotes from qualified people/motoring organisations ALL saying merging in turn is the best way to handle lane closures.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[fwaggie]

I do find it amusing that the Americans (and others) who a lot of British people generally consider as ignorant and bad drivers, can perform zip merging with no problem at all, yet there are obviously a lot of UK people who just cannot grasp the concept.

Get a sand egg timer and start it running.

Just how tall would it need to be to keep all the grains of sand in a single line? As would be if the "merge in point" moved back and back and back to the start of the single line queue.

Also the sand grains have no irrational misconception that other grains are "rushing past them" or cutting in, and so they ALL proceed at the same speed (if the egg timer is a parallel tube), and all grains that are the same distance from the constriction pass through it at approximately the same time, regardless of which "lane" they're in, and when they arrive at the constriction they just filter into the constriction evenly, roughly based on the closest goes first regardless of what angle it is arriving from.

If everyone had the same attitude, all lanes would hold the same amount of traffic at the same speed and there wouldn't be any "rushing up to force their way in", so nothing to resent anyone else for.