Merging

I know that last time I talked about driving, I said that the next thing I was going to write about was turn signals. While that is a very irritating subject, I have a better one. Merging!

Typically you have to merge when you are getting on the freeway. Here are some tips for the mergers.

  1. The road leading to the freeway is called an “acceleration ramp”, not an “on ramp”.
  2. The purpose of the acceleration ramp is to match your speed to the speed of the freeway
    • You should not try to go faster than the traffic on the freeway
    • You should not be going slower than the traffic on the freeway
    • You should never stop on the acceleration ramp!
  3. Don’t tailgate the person in front of you, if they are not going fast enough tailgating them will not help you merge.
  4. Use your turn signal to indicate that you wish to join the traffic in the lane next to you. This is important for you and the traffic you are merging into.
  5. Merging, when done correctly should be every other car joining the lane nice and easy.

Of course the tips for mergers would not be effective if the traffic is not following some simple tips as well, which are:

  1. Don’t tailgate when approaching an acceleration ramp.
  2. Some acceleration ramps lead to their own new lane on the freeway, if the person is not signaling their intention to join your lane you don’t need to slow down to open up a half mile gap for them to enter your lane.
  3. Let them merge. This is not the time to puff up your chest and pretend you are a linebacker. It’s your responsibility to let people merge.
  4. Watch for traffic on the acceleration ramp and attempt to predict what might happen at the actual merge point. If the acceleration ramp does not lead to it’s own lane, it’s highly probable that the vehicles on the acceleration ramp are going to want to join your lane of traffic.

It’s important to remember that merging is a cooperative task. You should not be blocking mergers, and mergers should not be driving as if the traffic on the freeway in the target lane should be getting out of their way. Merging in heavy traffic is not fun, but if everyone started to attempt to do it properly, traffic might flow better during peak traffic periods.

And pigs can fly, given sufficient velocity.

February 8, 2007 | Filed Under General 

Comments

Leave a Reply