Self righteous truckers!
Discussion
blueg33 said:
Not UK but the principle is the same. For those that struggle with the concept, watch this educational video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru27rw7xhnA
Did you know that ants also use the "zipper merge" and they don't get traffic jams
I'd agree that Zip merging is the right way to do it. But zip merging isn't "overtaking as many cars as possible and then merging at the last possible minute" (IMO). In fact, quite often you'll see 2 or even 3 cars merging into the same spot if the driver in L1 has predicted what's going to happen.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru27rw7xhnA
Did you know that ants also use the "zipper merge" and they don't get traffic jams
If I'm in a lane that's closing then what I tend to do is match speeds with the person on my left. Pretty much everytime he will leave a gap for me and we approach the merge point in a staggered formation. Both of us get through, and importantly NEITHER of us needs to slow down or brake in order for a smooth merge. For me the ideal merge is one whch doesnt cause anybody in the othe rlane to slow down and create the concertina effect which eventually ends up in BOTH lanes coming to a crawl.
From seeing loads of these complaints both here and on facebook, and seeing some shockingly stupid replies, I think the highways agency and/or councils need more signs. "Use both lanes, Merge in turn" is not enough. What we need is:
Use both lanes!
Stay in lane!
Don't merge yet!
Stay in lane!
Ok, now merge in turn!
Use both lanes!
Stay in lane!
Don't merge yet!
Stay in lane!
Ok, now merge in turn!
Ransoman said:
From seeing loads of these complaints both here and on facebook, and seeing some shockingly stupid replies, I think the highways agency and/or councils need more signs. "Use both lanes, Merge in turn" is not enough. What we need is:
Use both lanes!
Stay in lane!
Don't merge yet!
Stay in lane!
Ok, now merge in turn!
Haha that sounds like a great idea, maybe it would finally get the message across. The problem at the moment is that you get people merging all over the place depending on how confident they feel, some 500m before they need too, some more at 300m out, another group at 150m, some right at the end etc, etc. It's that which creates the utter chaos. Far better if everyone just merged in one place surely?Use both lanes!
Stay in lane!
Don't merge yet!
Stay in lane!
Ok, now merge in turn!
Someone else pointed out that maybe the truckers thought they were doing everyone a service by preventing what they though were people 'queue jumping'?
What they were actually doing was stretching the queue in lane 1 to nearly twice the length it would have been had lane 2 not been blocked. This causing chaos at the proceeding junction that the queue ran back to, resulting in queues on the side roads running into the junction. I know because the first time this happened I had to wait for 15mins just to get onto the dual carriageway where everyone (apart from the brave) had formed a single and rigid line of almost stationary traffic in lane 1. Once in lane 1 (and following the queue in both lanes signage), I swapped to a relatively free flowing lane 2 for about 500m, passing crawling traffic in lane 1 until the truck sat blocking the road. Madness!
The problem is merging should be smooth and even .It rarely is and ends up as a stop start farce .
Trying to do stop start on large trucks is a right pitta .
Some truckers do get fed up with this and also all the twunts trying to squeeze up the blind spots .
I don't condone it and it's not big or clever .but I do understand have some sympathy trying to guide alarge artic through the reduced lanes of roadworks..
Have a look next time you are stuck behind a truck in roadworks at how little room they have in the lanes .
We have it lucky in this country with the length of roadworks,the longest that I have ever experienced is 140 kms . On the road from Patras to Athens.
Trying to do stop start on large trucks is a right pitta .
Some truckers do get fed up with this and also all the twunts trying to squeeze up the blind spots .
I don't condone it and it's not big or clever .but I do understand have some sympathy trying to guide alarge artic through the reduced lanes of roadworks..
Have a look next time you are stuck behind a truck in roadworks at how little room they have in the lanes .
We have it lucky in this country with the length of roadworks,the longest that I have ever experienced is 140 kms . On the road from Patras to Athens.
Ransoman said:
From seeing loads of these complaints both here and on facebook, and seeing some shockingly stupid replies, I think the highways agency and/or councils need more signs. "Use both lanes, Merge in turn" is not enough. What we need is:
Use both lanes!
Stay in lane!
Don't merge yet!
Stay in lane!
Ok, now merge in turn!
Except generally we have more traffic in the inside lane than the outside lane, and most merges are to get people in the inside lane. So we need to encourage people to move in to the outer lane to get merge in turn to work properly.Use both lanes!
Stay in lane!
Don't merge yet!
Stay in lane!
Ok, now merge in turn!
. I'm sure it blows the minds of some of the people behind me!Mandat said:
Yes, that is how merging should work, however this discussion is not about the merge itself but rather about the 2 queues of traffic leading up to the merge point, which the idiot truck driver is obstructing.
There's only one queue, read the OP.Andy20vt said:
trucker straddling the white centreline at the start of the queue and not letting anyone past him.
popeyewhite said:
Mandat said:
Yes, that is how merging should work, however this discussion is not about the merge itself but rather about the 2 queues of traffic leading up to the merge point, which the idiot truck driver is obstructing.
There's only one queue, read the OP.Andy20vt said:
trucker straddling the white centreline at the start of the queue and not letting anyone past him.
There should also be 2 queues in front of the truck as well, since both lanes should be fully utilised up to the merge point.
Andy20vt said:
Despite the highway code stating that vehicles should 'merge in turn', and signs on the roadworks saying 'queue using both lanes' for the third time this week I've ended up stuck behind some self righteous trucker straddling the white centreline at the start of the queue and not letting anyone past him.
So we've got lane 1 that's jam packed, a queue that stretches back much further than it should, blocking the preceding junctions and roundabouts and impeding other traffic that's simply trying to cross over the dual carriageway, yet lane 2 on the dual carriageway ahead of the truck is completely empty and unused!
Arghhh, for god sake you selfish pr**ks! Stop trying to play god, stop causing inconvenience to others and let the traffic flow as it was intended.
Nice selective use of the Highway Code, do you follow the rules of the Highway Code to the letter or just when you've got something to rant about??So we've got lane 1 that's jam packed, a queue that stretches back much further than it should, blocking the preceding junctions and roundabouts and impeding other traffic that's simply trying to cross over the dual carriageway, yet lane 2 on the dual carriageway ahead of the truck is completely empty and unused!
Arghhh, for god sake you selfish pr**ks! Stop trying to play god, stop causing inconvenience to others and let the traffic flow as it was intended.
a4cabrio said:
Nice selective use of the Highway Code, do you follow the rules of the Highway Code to the letter or just when you've got something to rant about??
I think its more the self appointed policeman thatcthe truck driver is tfying to be that's annoying him. Its not for other drivers to police the roads especially when they are too stupid to understand why the road is designed that way.
Ps. Its a scientific fact that some people are so stupid that they don't realise that they are stupid. That type of self appointed policeman demonstrates that fact.
a4cabrio said:
Nice selective use of the Highway Code, do you follow the rules of the Highway Code to the letter or just when you've got something to rant about??
Indeed, it's only a recommendation anyway - a fact pointed to quite frequently when it suits certain posters. The HC also states you're not supposed to speed past stationary traffic..but this is what the queue jumpers do all the time. Truth of the matter is it's quicker to have a single lane going through a merge point so perhaps improved and earlier motorway signage might help to get people merging sooner.One of the funniest things I've seen on the road in recent years was an HGV doing the typical road captain thing and stopping in L2 when the were road signs advertising a temporary lane closure ahead.
Only when we got finally there, the workers had finished removing the cones, just not the signs.
So, effectively, he had singlehandedly created a traffic jam.
As someone only about three cars behind him this whole time, I took great pleasure in laughing at him with pantomime over-exaggeration as I went past. He was beetroot red in (I assume) a combo of anger and embarrassment.
Only when we got finally there, the workers had finished removing the cones, just not the signs.
So, effectively, he had singlehandedly created a traffic jam.
As someone only about three cars behind him this whole time, I took great pleasure in laughing at him with pantomime over-exaggeration as I went past. He was beetroot red in (I assume) a combo of anger and embarrassment.
popeyewhite said:
Hackney said:
If this was the right thing to do wouldn't everyone be doing it, not just one trucker?
Wouldn't the signs say, drive down the centre line making one lane instead of two?
Exactly, the signs say merge in turn. So use both lanes until the merge point reducing the length of the queue and freeing up entrances to / from side roads etc.
...Is one course of action. The other for a reasonable person confronted with a queue would be to join it. As we all do in various situations in life. But behind the wheel everything changes doesn't it? Why d'you think that is?Wouldn't the signs say, drive down the centre line making one lane instead of two?
Exactly, the signs say merge in turn. So use both lanes until the merge point reducing the length of the queue and freeing up entrances to / from side roads etc.
It's been done a million times but when two lanes merge into one, why leave all that empty road? Why not use it?
It's not queue jumping, because if everyone used it properly there wouldn't be empty and full lanes to the merge point there'd be two (moving) used lanes.
popeyewhite said:
Mandat said:
Yes, that is how merging should work, however this discussion is not about the merge itself but rather about the 2 queues of traffic leading up to the merge point, which the idiot truck driver is obstructing.
There's only one queue, read the OP.Andy20vt said:
trucker straddling the white centreline at the start of the queue and not letting anyone past him.
Edited by Hackney on Saturday 8th April 21:23
popeyewhite said:
Indeed, it's only a recommendation anyway - a fact pointed to quite frequently when it suits certain posters. The HC also states you're not supposed to speed past stationary traffic..but this is what the queue jumpers do all the time. Truth of the matter is it's quicker to have a single lane going through a merge point so perhaps improved and earlier motorway signage might help to get people merging sooner.
Why do you persist with your incorrect nonsense, particularly as you've already been told that there is no queue jumping, except in the minds of the hard of thinking? Also, merging earlier than at the merge point is the cause of the current problems. The early mergers need to be better educated to use both lanes of queuing traffic, and to merge at the actual merge point.
Hackney said:
But if the trucker wasn't such a dick then there'd be two lines.
Unlikely. Probably there would be one long line of people queuing, and an adjacent, shorter line at the zip point where people viewed as queue jumpers try to merge but end up slowing everybody down. Like I've said, people feel the need to queue and there's little anyone can do about it.popeyewhite said:
a4cabrio said:
Nice selective use of the Highway Code, do you follow the rules of the Highway Code to the letter or just when you've got something to rant about??
Indeed, it's only a recommendation anyway - a fact pointed to quite frequently when it suits certain posters. The HC also states you're not supposed to speed past stationary traffic..but this is what the queue jumpers do all the time. Truth of the matter is it's quicker to have a single lane going through a merge point so perhaps improved and earlier motorway signage might help to get people merging sooner.My brother was until a few years ago a highways and railways flow modeller, he is absolutely certain that using both lanes up to the merge point works.
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