Bingo.
Best to be nice and let people in, especially in zipper merges.
But if nobody lets you in, it’s not okay to force your way in.
There is a lot of room and motivation for cooperation, but that doesn’t change the fact that nobody ever has a right to merge into another lane where a car blocks that merge.
I suspect that machete guy had some confusion about this last point, and that had disastrous consequences. Let’s not encourage that entitlement confusion; encouraging cooperation doesn’t have to imply entitlement to cooperation.
If traffic is already at a crawl then volume is exceeding any reasonable capacity to maintain speed, which means everyone is basically doing stop and go. At this point taking turns is logical. Locally we have a closed interstate, two lanes merge to one, and then that one lane goes to an exit ramp. At peak volumes everyone stops and goes, but at off times the right lane backs up for miles because no one will merge over when there is plenty of room and everyone is still running +55. Instead people have to slow down and let those in the left lane over as their lane ends.
This is the one thing self driving cars will fix. At reasonable volumes there is no reason to slow down, merge and don’t freak out and don’t be an asshole.
Zipper merging is a fairly routine and effective thing in many parts of the world. It works just fine, except in areas where the local car culture is unnecessarily dickish.
I wasn’t taught zippering in driver’s ed in 90. I have never encountered zippering in follow up DL exams. I have never seen road signs explaining zippering in my city. 9 out of the 10 references to zippering I have encountered have been here on BB. I dont know why zippering isnt instructed in my city.
Sooo, not really dickish, just ignorant. I think most people would be pleased to see how well it works over our standard cluster of “merge whenever you feel like it”.
The thing is, if the lane is closing for construction you’re supposed to use both lanes until the merge point and then zipper merge. Traffic gets backed up because everyone moves over early.
It’s refreshing to see a new poster with something good to say. Welcome! You and I are exactly the same person.
Hard to believe that even after getting his car beaten the driver wouldn’t give up the lane. I’d be on the phone to the police after that. They both lost!
Why wouldn’t you make the law “be courteous and let them merge?” Their lane is ending, they have nowhere else to go. Why not take your foot off the gas for a second to let them in? I guess its more in tune with the selfish individualist mindset to codify “its my lane, dammit!” into actual law, eh? Sounds like a good way to encourage exactly the kind of nonsense we see on display in the video.
I’m not talking about a zipper merge situation, though. I’m talking about traffic that’s stopped well past the choke point and the selfish assholes who pass dozens and dozens of cars that have merged and lined up.
It’s to eliminate confusion. The law isn’t really set up to handle courtesy, selfishness or individualism. It’s set up to keep people safe. It’s about predictability. The law is set up so that the person who is doing the least safe thing or the most unpredictable thing (changing lanes, making a left turn, backing up, etc) has the least right-of-way and so the greatest duty to make sure there is space and time to accomplish his maneuver.
You and I have different definitions of moral. In my view, morality informs us that intentionally preventing someone from going about their way isn’t a moral act. In any case, once you speed up to prevent them going in, slow down to prevent them going behind you, and back up to keep them from getting in the lane, you have crossed from “obligation” in to negligent and dangerous behavior.
Yeah, they tried that and the asshole STI driver slowed down to prevent it and even backed up to keep them out of the lane. Watch the video again.
(Note: My reply to you is not really relevant to the original video’s scenario, sorry).
I’ve lived in Boston and Pittsburgh, and in both places there are frequently situations where the way to get where you’re going goes something like this: Merge from Highway A onto Highway B at speed, then cross 3 lanes of traffic to get to your exit on the opposite side about a quarter mile later; miss it and you have lose a half hour by doubling back or taking a different route. Making sure people have to let you in, even if they would rather not, without causing a crash, quickly, is a necessary basic skill.
Its perfectly predictable to me that I’m supposed to share the road with a merging lane, I don’t think there’s really a difference in predictability (laws here in Canada aren’t different as far as regular lane changes, etc). The only difference is (under heavy but moving traffic), the way we do it here results in cars from both lanes proceeding at a slower rate, where the way they apparently do it in Texas, one lane gets to keep going along at speed and the other potentially comes to a dead stop.
If I’m on a freeway / expressway I know which one I think is safer, and its not the one with the huge speed differential between a normally proceeding lane and one that has to wait for a gap large enough to try to get from a standstill to highway speed without causing an accident.
As you started with, we’re too far into the encounter to know that’s what happened.
Again, we don’t know that’s what happened.
From this video, there’s no way to tell that this isn’t how this started. We would have needed dash cam footage that was already recording instead of a phone video started after it got interesting.
We can definitely agree that the WRX did not allow for the HHR to merge. That’s about all we can tell from the video.
In the scenario you present, the HHR turns on his blinker and shifts to the right with no consideration for what’s over there. Plowing into the WRX that already occupies that space.
Just as likely, possibly more since the HHR is farther forward than the WRX is that the HHR turned on his blinker and moved into a gap in front of the WRX. A gap that was probably big enough to fit the HHR. A gap the WRX was using to maintain a safe following distance. The WRX decided that he didn’t want to give up that space, since it was the safe following gap not a gap to allow someone to merge into and accelerated to close the gap, hitting the HHR on the side.
Somewhere after that point, the video starts. We can see the HHR that’s farther forward than the WRX and they’re both in the same lane at this point tries to separate from the WRX, the WRX accelerates to close the gap and prevent the HHR from occupying the lane they are both in. Seconds 6 to 9 of the video. This repeats again seconds 39 to 44 of the video. Based on this observation, it’s just as likely, possibly more, that the second scenario occurred with the WRX being the cause of the initial contact.
In either case, they’re both at fault for the full list of events. There’s just no way to determine who started it.
I think part of the issue here is what people consider effective zippering.
Looking at a two lane to one situation, if the total traffic volume exceeds what one lane can accommodate then it makes sense to fill both lanes to the point of merge. Over all incoming traffic before the merge is going to slow down simply because of physics, AI self drive couldn’t change that. It would improve the alternating turn taking and reduce assholeness, but not magically fit 150% more cars in one lane at speed.
Now if the overall incoming volume is able to be handled by a single lane then merging early enough to not disrupt traffic flow makes sense. AI self drive here would work great because the person waiting to the last moment to squeeze in isn’t causing a ripple of brake lights in the non ending lane. Multiple this and the non ending lane slows and slows.
I agree that at a certain point maxing all lanes to the merge point is the correct idea, but there is a point before this where the human aspect destroys any hope of efficiency.
