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Hypothetical Traffic Question
Kyougu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Caught myself wondering this.
There's an exit onto a free way that's two lanes. The right lane has been closed off due to construction but it's not actually closed off onto the end of exit where it merges into the left before leading to the free way. So naturally a long line forms on the left lane while others use the right lane to skip to the front and merge there.
Say that I find myself in the front of the exit and stubbornly decide not to let these people merge. Both my car and the other person keep moving forward until either one of us either stopped and let the other pass or the cars would scratch. Say they did scratch, who's fault would it be?
I'm not stupid , crazy or rich enough to damage my car to spite a random stranger but I got curious today.
There's an exit onto a free way that's two lanes. The right lane has been closed off due to construction but it's not actually closed off onto the end of exit where it merges into the left before leading to the free way. So naturally a long line forms on the left lane while others use the right lane to skip to the front and merge there.
Say that I find myself in the front of the exit and stubbornly decide not to let these people merge. Both my car and the other person keep moving forward until either one of us either stopped and let the other pass or the cars would scratch. Say they did scratch, who's fault would it be?
I'm not stupid , crazy or rich enough to damage my car to spite a random stranger but I got curious today.
Kyougu on
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Also, I never let those guys in. Fuck those guys.
That said, I really hate how people handle situations like this. The most logical and correct thing to do from a traffic flow standpoint is to have all traffic merge together as close to the point of the traffic constriction as possible.
Basically, doing otherwise is advocating an extension of that lane closure. How could that possibly help traffic flow? There is a situation in Seattle where I-90 West merges onto I-5 North. Three lanes funnel down to one lane to enter onto I-5. The middle lane that they merge into is always way backed up, and everyone thinks you're a dick if you use either of the other ones. Effectively, people trying to "wait their turn" cause a 200 foot one-lane constriction to instead be a half mile or more long.
I was so gloriously fucking livid at the idiots on the road at that point, were it my car he hit, I probably would have opened my door and knocked him off his bike.
It's never about "waiting your turn." It's about merging because you know you've got to merge. If you want to stay in a closing lane for as long as possible, you're just a douche. If everyone were to merge as soon as possible and just drive in the available lane, there would be no stopping for the most part. Most of the reason there is a huge lineup in these situations is people have to stop to let idiots in who are driving in the closing lane all the way until the end.
To answer the OP's question, if you're in your own lane and someone merges in and hits you, you're not at fault. I really doubt there is any law that says otherwise. If it's about "failure to avoid an accident," you can just claim the guy veered in at the last second and you didn't see him. It's not your responsibility to make sure other drivers aren't driving recklessly. You were obeying the rules of the road.
I strongly disagree that extending a lane closure will help prevent a backup.
If he's not at fault at all, he wouldn't have to lie to cover it up. A person absolutely can be cited (in certain juridictions, anyway) for doing exactly what the OP has asked about. That's not to say that he'll be found entirely at fault, but it's VERY possible that he'll be found partially so.
Yep.
This is only true if everyone could merge "at combat speed." This is not possible. Merging requires either that you take an opportunity to move into a gap in the adjacent lane when it is available, or that you change speeds, or the other lane changes speeds, to line up with a gap.
If you wait till the very point where you can't go anymore you must, by necessity, slow down. This means that the people in the other lane will have to slow down to let you in, or flip you off as they drive by and then you have to stop.
Since slowdowns propagate backwards through traffic and are amplified a small slow down at the point of constriction to let one person through causes a larger slowdown through the entire lane causing more people to try to dodge around it by staying in the closing lane causing more slowdown.
If your goal is to get there as soon as possible for you personally, you may (I don't think you actually will over the other method, but may) make a small gain by staying in the closing lane till the last minute, but you'll be a huge goose because you're making _everyone_ behind you slow down or even stop.
If your goal is to have smooth traffic flow then you should get over as soon as you know that the lane is closing and there is a gap that requires minimal maneuvering to get into.
The second method will result in faster average traffic flow with fewer outliers.
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It's also not true that "extending the length of the single lane area" will slow traffic: the most important part is the bottleneck itself. Unless there is some situation where the bottleneck is likely to be removed before all the cars in line can pass through, or where the extension of the single lane area will overlap an exit that might relieve some of the volume of traffic, the most important thing is not the length of the bottleneck, but the speed at which cars move through it. Keeping up a steady and brisk flow of traffic through the open lane is the most important consideration, and this is why I hate people that try to muscle in: not because they don't wait their turn, but because they cause a disruption in the flow of traffic which slows everyone behind them down.
It'd probably be a 50/50 chance if you were enough on the shoulder to prevent him from going around you or something.
Don't be a dick. Take turns.
In heavy congestion (stop-and-go conditions) it is more efficient to fill both lanes and zipper-merge at the point of constriction. NOVA actually has to post "Take Your Turn" signs in some of these areas because of dicks who ride the ass of the car in front of them preventing other cars from merging. There's nothing noble about merging early in heavy traffic. There's no legal requirement to merge early.
If you don't let someone in and you two collide, I wouldn't be surprised a court finds you at 50% fault, because this 'taking turns' thing is practically a de facto rule. Plus, both drivers could have easily avoided the accident, hence the 50%.
You're right, but a tit for a tat -- someone who pulls out of the merged lane to get ahead of everyone is an asshole. Regardless of what traffic vigilantes do.
For his thought exercise, the person who hit him will most likely be at fault regardless. Traffic will move smoother if you merge sooner, that way everyone can slow down appropriately. Sure it may go half a mile for a few hundred feet but at least everyone's moving 30-40 mph instead of everyone stopping for 5-10 minutes at the point of merging.
I suppose im causing less traffic by getting in early as I am only backingup/slowing down a smaller portion of the lane as opposed to the entire line waiting.
But yes, the majority of the traffic is caused by people not getting over when they can and forcing a slowdown/stop by one or both lanes for the merger to happen. It is not the folks who are getting over ASAP. If everyone got over ASAP thered be a lot less of an issue because youd likely be able to find a spot to merge before it becomes critical and you have to slowdown/stop to do so.
In cases where traffic is not already stop-and-go for the lane that all cars must merge into, it's beneficial to do this, yes.
In the case of a more or less stop-and-go situation like in the OP, it's much better to be distributed across open lanes, and zipper together at the point of the closure.
Either would work fine really so long as everyone was doing the same thing, but that never happens in the states. As an aside, I've found in places with extremely heavy and widespread congestion (e.g. Delhi, London) everyone late merges.
Personally I early merge, eventhough I think it's not the best thing to do. Why? Cause most drivers I share the road with seem to be total cocks and won't let you merge, so it just results in lower blood pressure for me if I find an early opportunity to merge and be done with it. Early mergers by in large are very attached to their place in line and are more likely to get irate if you "cut."
I'd think that, under heavy congestion, if you and the guy merging into your lane mulishly idled into one another and caused an accident it would be considered mixed fault for mutual jackasserry.
Hasn't happened to me, but I've been in traffic court where people were contesting the ticket.
The judge told them to not be such a dick next time.
But if the traffic is flowing, late merges will usually cause a decrease in speed, so merging early will be better. I'm speaking from experience.
I'm pretty sure I know which area the OP is talking about, it's the ramp from I-35 to GWB. At that particular section, GWB is 4 lanes wide, plus the 1 lane from the entrance ramp (used to be 2, right lane now closed). The lane from the ramp doesn't merge into GWB, it has it's own lane for at least 3/4 miles, which then it turns into an exit only lane.
I go through there everyday coming home from work, and traffic on GWB is always going 60+ mph. On days where people merge early, it's a breeze getting through that ramp, because again, you don't merge coming off of the ramp, you have your own lane and sufficient time to switch lanes, so there's no reason to slow down. On days where the ramp does slow down, sometimes to a stop-and-go point, there are always a lot of late mergers. Once you get past that merge point, it's 60+ mph again, so clearly the late mergers are slowing down traffic. In which case I don't let anyone in either.
Well, if this is true, then I think we've come to the end of the argument about this!
I, for one, am willing to defer to people who have literally gone to school and studied this thing in an academic environment over people like us who just see it from behind our windshields in the middle of frustrating traffic.
Can everyone at least agree that the people are assholes who move out of the appropriate lane, step on the gas to get an extra three car lengths ahead, then merge back in?
Doesn't help that the only way to turn right there is on a red, after the southbound traffic has emptied out on their own green. By the time my green comes along, the southbound lane is gridlocked because more traffic comes along right as it turns red, and people love to sit in an intersection while the light is red. Timing the lights better would fix this, but traffic engineers know best right?
I'm pretty convinced that a good portion of those are the least evil of any possible solutions.
BUT On this there is consensus.
Yeah, it's an entirely different matter when there's a lane that's a turn lane or an exit lane that's backed up and people use the lane next to it to get to the front.
Ha, that's exactly the spot I'm talking about. It's on my commute from work every day too and I just pretty much had the exact same experience as you.
Thanks for the opinions guys. I still say late mergers are assholes but I can at least somewhat rationalize their actions.
I was just about to say this.
Doc and the rest of us can amicably discuss what is the more efficient merging system (ASAP or near-constriction zippering) all the live long day but we can all agree that leaving a single lane and racing up the empty one, then attempting to rejoin the original lane has no global merit whatsoever, and in that sense you need to "wait your turn".
I did this once on accident. Was stuck in traffic and went "oh that lane to my left is moving quickly!" Hopped over and drove a bit and then went "oh shit, thats my exit over there!"
I still feel like a dick. Its the worst thing ive ever done to anybody, ever.