DTM: What’s the best or correct method for merging two lanes of traffic? Merge as soon as traffic stops or continue on to the merge point? An example is leaving downtown from Cantrell to the Interstate 30 bridge. A long line forms on the left. Often, drivers who attempt to travel to the front in the right lane are blocked, cursed and browbeaten by line monitors.
- Fence and Guardrail
Dear Fence: You have touched on the topic that most vexes drivers escaping downtown at the end of a long day. This column has fielded, poorly, and answered with great confusion the question of how drivers should behave in such circumstances.
Usually those questions refer to the conniption that is the Interstate 630 to I-30 rush-hour bottleneck.
Some drivers believe it is rude to get out of line and go around. You believe it’s OK to go around the stopped line and continue along in the lane less traveled. The latter is the solution advocated by traffic engineers. The lane is there to be used. So use it until it runs out, then merge safely.
If others block, curse and browbeat; that’s the emotional price to be paid.
Tom Vanderbilt, who wrote the 2009 best-seller Traffic, is generally an advocate of late merging.
He divides drivers into two camps. First are those who consider themselves to be virtuous by early merging.
Then come the late mergers, who argue the practice is “rationally utilizing the highway’s maximum capacity, thus making life better for everyone.”
A third option? Go a different way.
Another reader recently fussed about bad merging on that short stretch of highway in North Little Rock that is Interstate 40 and U.S. 67/167 and who knows what else at the same time. The way people merge and change lanes on this mile or so of interstate makes this reader crazy.
As it should, because our experience is his.
So let’s review how to merge and exit, courtesy of the Arkansas Driver License Study Guide:
When merging, try to enter at the same speed of traffic.
Use the on-ramp to build up speed to match the speed of traffic.
Change lanes one at a time. Don’t fly across four lanes of traffic on I-40/U.S.
67-167, you crazy goober.
Do not drive to the end of the ramp and stop. You won’t have enough room to get up to traffic speed.
Drivers behind you don’t expect a stop - ergo, rear end collision possible. (We threw in ergo for Latin scholars.)
When exiting, keep up with the speed of traffic while on the main road.
Don’t slow down until you’ve moved onto the exit ramp.
Readers, bless their hearts, have sent in some personalized license plates.
LV2FISH is either love to fish or live to fish. Is there a difference?
UNSTOPU, seen on a plumber’s van.
RIN TIN, known to be the plate of a dog breeder.
NOLITTR, confirmed as the plate of Robert Phelps, director of the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Commission.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 05/03/2014