Merge in Turn

Author
Discussion

russy01

4,693 posts

180 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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Potatoes said:
PurpleMoonlight said:
If you force people to merge half a mile before the roads merge, all you do is move the queue half a mile back ....
This.

What a retarded police van driver...
Both lanes should be used, when the merge signs are seen you should look to merge where possible. If its very busy both lanes should be used to their full extent with drivers merging in turn.

Everybody is adamant that traffic queues on say a motorway is caused by people braking/stopping and therefore the chain reaction causes a stoppage. This exact same thing happens with drivers in the left lane who floor it and brake late to close the gap infront.

If everybody acted like sensible adults and actually merged in turn there would be no problem.

So gap blockers, climb down from your high horse and let people in.
And Late barger'inners - feel free to stay in the right lane, but get in when necessary. Don't floor it down the chevrons to make 5 car lengths.

Both as bad as each other.

Himself

483 posts

146 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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Countdown said:
Where is it defined that the point where the Lane closes is the "merge point"?
The merge point is wherever you decide to merge, if it was meant to be a point before the end of the narrowing lane then surely they'd put some hatching or other markings on the road to indicate this? I just can't see the point of leaving xxx yards of empty tarmac just because someone is a bit precious about 'their' piece of tarmac. Merge where you like I don't really care, hopefully you'll afford me the same courtesy?

LovelyTia

553 posts

179 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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tyranical said:
Yes you can say "but then the queue would be longer if they all joined the back" but it really wouldn't as the traffic would flow far better as it wouldn't have people squashing in at the end so everyone would just be moving and not having to let people in.

Down with merge in turn!
You seem to have excluded the person that sits with a 2 car gap at all times, so whenever someone merges into 'his/her gap' they then fall back pushing every single car in the queue behind him further back as he/she slows down xxmph to create the new gap.

All your doing by merging or forcing a merge point far to early is creating a bottleneck/rolling road block further back.
If everyone zip merged at the point of design for it, then there wouldnt be an issue.

Obviously the ones race up to the front a good 10-20mph faster then the other lane then expect everyone else to give way to them are massive thundering knobs, no one disagrees with that but who is to say those in the other lane won't be able to merge sensibly further up then you have deigned a good point to do it.

yorkshireegg

107 posts

134 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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LovelyTia said:
You seem to have excluded the person that sits with a 2 car gap at all times, so whenever someone merges into 'his/her gap' they then fall back pushing every single car in the queue behind him further back as he/she slows down xxmph to create the new gap.
And before you know it, everyone is going backwards? rolleyes

Face for Radio

Original Poster:

1,777 posts

166 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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LovelyTia said:
massive thundering knobs
hehe

V8mate

45,899 posts

188 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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DrTre said:
Merge in turn.
Three words.

I wonder if there are any other three word instructions that baffle so, so many people.
Don't do drugs.

LovelyTia

553 posts

179 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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yorkshireegg said:
And before you know it, everyone is going backwards? rolleyes
Reading to much into what I said don't you think rolleyes
They normally slow down until the gap has formed then speed back up, meaning gaps further back that could be merge points for others get absorbed so their gap can be recreated.

Wills2

22,666 posts

174 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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Looking at the photo the police just seem to be leaving a larger than "normal gap" (to reference normal see how close a thrusting rep gets to you in dense stop start traffic) to the slowing traffic in front, everyone appears to have their brake lights on so he is just creating a defensive gap.

Nothing in that picture suggests he is blocking the right hand lane the car in front is only 5 lengths from him.

Not sure what the OP saw is what he hoped it would be.

Was this taken between Stevenage and Letchworth? If so the traffic in the inside lane moves off to the left so anyone in the right hand lane doesn't actually have to merge.

Edited by Wills2 on Sunday 17th February 12:39

Dominicc01

530 posts

166 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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This really fks me off. There are two lanes, and I fully intend to use the clearest one, as I do at all other times. The worst are van drivers who weave across both lanes to try to stop anyone getting past them. I usually manage though.

In truth, it depends how much I can be arsed with the aggro, but on a motorway I'm almost always in a barge, so I will be perfectly happy using it to my advantage. Not many people are willing to risk trading paint with a 15 year old car which is twice as heavy as theirs.

If I have merged in earlier, I have no problem letting a car merge in front of me. See them needing to merge in, drop back a second, and all moves smoothly. When everyone drives 2 inches from the car in front to prevent merging, it just causes the traffic to stop-start constantly, and then someone will inevitably mis-judge and rear-end the car in front. rolleyes

Potatoes

3,572 posts

169 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
quotequote all
Wills2 said:
Looking at the photo the police just seem to be leaving a larger than "normal gap" (to reference normal see how close a thrusting rep gets to you in dense stop start traffic) to the slowing traffic in front, everyone appears to have their brake lights on so he is just creating a defensive gap.

Nothing in that picture suggests he is blocking the right hand lane the car in front is only 5 lengths from him.

Not sure what the OP saw is what he hoped it would be.
Well, I'll take back my comment if that's the case

Wills2

22,666 posts

174 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
quotequote all
Potatoes said:
Wills2 said:
Looking at the photo the police just seem to be leaving a larger than "normal gap" (to reference normal see how close a thrusting rep gets to you in dense stop start traffic) to the slowing traffic in front, everyone appears to have their brake lights on so he is just creating a defensive gap.

Nothing in that picture suggests he is blocking the right hand lane the car in front is only 5 lengths from him.

Not sure what the OP saw is what he hoped it would be.
Well, I'll take back my comment if that's the case
That's what it looks like to me.

Deva Link

26,934 posts

244 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
quotequote all
Dominicc01 said:
This really fks me off. There are two lanes, and I fully intend to use the clearest one, as I do at all other times. The worst are van drivers who weave across both lanes to try to stop anyone getting past them. I usually manage though.
In some ways I feel the same - on the route from home into town there are two lanes to one merges in each direction (permanent, not road works). The one into town has signs saying "use both lanes" but few people do, which I think is great, as I can merrily drive to the merge point.

The snag is that 4 out 5 times there's a battle where the person on the left will try very, very hard to block you. A guy in a 911 the other day stopped on my inside and started mothing off - I saw my chance and shot past him, but he reacted and came within an ace of rear-ending the car in front, in the process leaving a nice space behind for me to drop into!

deltashad

6,731 posts

196 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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Where exactly are the rules that you must merge before the merge in turn point. Some people really need to get a life. I'll happily let someone merge in front of me, unless they are driving dangerously. As for people who block others out, these are the idiots. Think they are road police. Knobs.

davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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Merging in turn relies upon everyone leaving a gap for people to merge at the merge point. So long as you leave a gap large enough for a car and your thinking distance, you won't need to brake when someone tries to merge, and then nobody behind you will brake.

Is it really beyond the ken of all of these drivers to look 400 yards up the road and understand what they need to do to keep the traffic flowing?


Glosphil

4,337 posts

233 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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davepoth said:
Merging in turn relies upon everyone leaving a gap for people to merge at the merge point. So long as you leave a gap large enough for a car and your thinking distance, you won't need to brake when someone tries to merge, and then nobody behind you will brake.

Is it really beyond the ken of all of these drivers to look 400 yards up the road and understand what they need to do to keep the traffic flowing?
It appears that it is.

yorkshireegg

107 posts

134 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
quotequote all
LovelyTia said:
Reading to much into what I said don't you think rolleyes
They normally slow down until the gap has formed then speed back up, meaning gaps further back that could be merge points for others get absorbed so their gap can be recreated.
I probably am, if it's done smoothly and with a bit of thought then it doesn't cause issues. A lot of people just seem to use that reason as an excuse to follow too closely.

Then again, most people just seem ignorant as to what a safe gap actually is.

Countdown

39,690 posts

195 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
quotequote all
Going from 2 lanes to one a week ago, traffic very light and progressing through L1 quite smoothy at circa 50mph. I was the last in line and there's roughly a 1 mile gap behind me to the next car, apart from one guy in L2 doing circa 85mph.

Rather than slotting in behind me he chooses to go past me and swerve in at the last minute braking hard to avoid going into the car in front. How fking stupid is that? All that risk so he could be one car in front?

Face for Radio

Original Poster:

1,777 posts

166 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
quotequote all
Wills2 said:
Potatoes said:
Wills2 said:
Looking at the photo the police just seem to be leaving a larger than "normal gap" (to reference normal see how close a thrusting rep gets to you in dense stop start traffic) to the slowing traffic in front, everyone appears to have their brake lights on so he is just creating a defensive gap.

Nothing in that picture suggests he is blocking the right hand lane the car in front is only 5 lengths from him.

Not sure what the OP saw is what he hoped it would be.
Well, I'll take back my comment if that's the case
That's what it looks like to me.
The gap was previously a lot larger, by the time my passenger thought it would be a good picture, got their phone out and took a snap, it had shortened a fair bit.

strudel

5,888 posts

226 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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The simple solution is to close the third lane entirely, then there won't be any merging issues.

0000

13,812 posts

190 months

Sunday 17th February 2013
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tyranical said:
Well done plod, I do this myself on occassion - I know this will ruin the day of many a PH'er who thinks its ok!

fk everyone else it does my head in when people just drive up the outside and barge in at the end, it slows me down aswell as everyone else just because some helmet thinks that they have priority. If there is genuinely no gap anywhere further back then fair enough, not that i've ever seen that happen but the amount of people you see who drive past all the gaps and just squash themselves into one that isn't there at the end is ridiculous.

Yes you can say "but then the queue would be longer if they all joined the back" but it really wouldn't as the traffic would flow far better as it wouldn't have people squashing in at the end so everyone would just be moving and not having to let people in.

Down with merge in turn!
Pervert.