The Glade 4.0

So you know those times when a lane is ending, and you're supposed to merge over into the next lane? What is up with those people that sit there and hug the right line as it moves over and act like the lane isn't ending, and screw anyone in the lane to their left, they can merge, I'm just going to follow this line.

Idiots.

I especially like it on on-ramps where the incoming traffic makes no effort to match speeds and merge, and just drive down to the end of the ramp and stop.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Oh that is aggravating too. The worst is when the on ramp is on the left side of the freeway, there is on on-ramp I frequent that is like that. I will sometimes end up behind people that don't seem to realize that the traffic they are going to be merging with is going 75mph+, and moseying down the on-ramp at 45mph is just not going to work. And since you are stuck behind them, you have to try to merge into traffic going 25 mph faster than you too.

I particularly hate the folks who absolutely know the lane is ending but decide to hop in it anyway to speed ahead of the traffic that had the sense to merge out of the lane beforehand. The sensible folks did so to, you know, speed up traffic. These assholes continue to jam up the traffic their selfishness.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I don't think it's selfishness. I think it's blatant stupidity.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

The whole not matching highway speed on the ramp issue is driven primarily, IMO, by pricks that don't make room for folks when they do match speed. If traffic is going 75mph, and you take your ramp to get up to 75mph, your going to be up ****'s creek if you can't get over. You're going 75mph and out of road.

I tend to just push my way in.

When you enter the Utah borders, you'll notice that cars are apparently sold with "blinkers optional." Signalling is not a common thing here. But the reason for it is also born of assholish behaviour.

It is extremely common for other drivers here to dislike letting people merge in front of them. I can somewhat understand doing it to the folks who purposefully hop into the "lane ending" as mentioned above. But, no, I am talking about not letting folks merge who legitimately need to merge.

I cannot count how many times I've seen a car put on it's blinkers, and the car next to him purposefully zoom ahead and close the gap so the other cannot merge in front of him. It's almost as if it's the mentality of "I must win! And if I let him in front of me, I lose! I must not lose! If I must screw others in order to win, so be it!"

That, in my personal opinion, is why so few people here use blinkers. You have a better chance of merging if the jerk (who doesn't let people merge) isn't expecting it.

Personally, I use my blinker. But I also start creeping over into the lane if I notice them speeding up. I am willing to risk car damage and even personal body damage to put an ******* in his place, or to have his insurance screw him over (and I drive a Mazda3, so it's not like I'm the big bruiser in this scenario).

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Not their job to "make room." Secondary traffic merging into primary traffic has the obligation to yield. Making room might be the courteous thing to do, I agree, but condemning people for not making room isn't very correct, from a technical perspective.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Some quick digging, and you're right. I'll have to rethink some things.

But I still think people who zoom ahead and purposefully block you from merging should choke on their own ****.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

You should see these idiots out here on the East Coast. Since it's a completely protectionist culture, they never learned to drive. There are **** stop signs at some of the on-ramps in NJ. /boggle

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

But the thing is, it is significantly easier to merge when matching highway speed, regardless if people make room. The closer you are to highway speed, the less room you need to merge.

First, heavy traffic provides no opportunity to merge without primary traffic making allowances. Second, I see no problem with condemning people for failing to be courteous. Third, this behavior is what makes people slow down on merge ramps (if they don't think people are going to let them in, they don't want to run out of road, so they go slow, and if they see a gap THEN they floor it), which ultimately results in a slow down for primary traffic (when someone jumps onto the highway while still accelerating to highway speed).

I agree, and that's how I proceed. Unless traffic is so tight that my Jeep will not physically fit between the bumpers of two cars, I'll get in, regardless of speed. Whilst giving the bird.

I blame bad education. I was actually taught in driver's ed to SLOW DOWN on the onramp. "You can't drive that fast, you're not ON the highway yet! You can't go fast until you're actually on the highway!"

It's generally expected that you don't need to accelerate all the way to full highway speed on the ramp; many ramps are simply not long enough to do that. However, anyone telling you that you should slow down on the ramp is incompetent as a driving instructor.

One of the mistakes generally made talking to kids about driving is that because kids want to drive to fast more often than not, adults frequently go too far in the other direction and are telling them to slow down at times they ought not to. If you see someone trying to merge and have room in front of you, the last thing you should do is slow down; you should speed up so they can more easily yield. There are certain emergencies where the best thing to do is floor the accelerator. Applying the brakes while trying to steer is a very common loss of control in serious accidents; apply brakes first, THEN release to steer.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

But, but.... Gran Turismo and Forza let me lay on the brakes while turning at 120mph, why doesn't real life?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Real life often doesn't even let you do it at 20mph, but that does not stop panicky parents from yelling "slow down!" at their teenager regardless of whether it's appropriate or not.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Trail braking is a skill that's hard to master; it's especially tricky on a motorcycle where you traction is even more limited and the dynamics of steering incorporate the roll axis much more than a car.

The Gran Turismo manual actually has a pretty good analogy to think about traction as a limited commodity. Imagine you have a string tied to your steering wheel both to your accelerator and brake pedal. As you steer, you lose slack (traction) which takes away from braking or accelerating in an FF layout vehicle. As you accelerate or brake, you likely lose traction available for steering. FR and MR cars add the additional dynamic of having the propulsion coming from behind the center of mass as well as splitting traction requirements up and then AWD systems, especially dynamic systems like Subaru, Porsche, Lamborghini etc. use complicate it even further. But they're still limited by the same fundamental principle: traction used for maneuvering (lateral acceleration) is not available for longitudinal acceleration.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Um, both Gran Turismo and Forza don't let you take turns at 120 mph, especially not while braking. You'll run into the wall. I think they're both pretty realistic in that regard.

Also, Numbuk, the most efficient way for traffic to merge when a land is ending is for everyone merge when the road itself actually merges. Merging early makes things slower for everyone and can create dangerous situations where you have a long line of stopped traffic next to another land that's mostly empty with cars zipping by. You're not queuing up in a line, you're on a road. Using all available lanes and merging like a zipper at the point where the road physically merges is the safest and fastest.

At the same time, if there's an empty lane, it's safer to pace the full lane than to zip ahead. And that's what assholes don't do.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That may be true if you stipulate a theoretical condition where drivers communicate and coordinate perfectly to merge in a hive mind like fashion but real drivers don't do that. Merging just in time would likely cause huge backups because someone would be out of sync with the established pattern traffic is merging and would rapidly slow down to avoid an accident, throwing the merge pattern into disarray.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Or, more frequently, somebody in the lane that doesn't disappear decides to be a dick and refuses to let the merging guy in. String a few of those together, and suddenly you've got a stopped lane instead of a zipper. And getting that stoppage started again is incredibly hard -- that's why people merge early when the opportunity arises, and that very state is what creates the jams in the first place.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

One of the little 'cities' within Houston enforces this by using radar on the ramps. *facepalms*

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

I don't think I can think of a more unwise place to try to catch speeders.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."