[masraum]

Originally Posted by rcooled

In my opinion, merging is, by far, the least-developed driving skill. I often see cars meandering down an on-ramp around 40MPH, then try pushing their way into 65-70MPH freeway traffic, making cars in the right-hand lane slow down to let them in. The other lanes then seem to slow down in sympathy. This is why there's often backed-up traffic around highway on-ramps. Why are people so afraid to step on the gas and match their speed to the traffic flow?

Construction zones cause the same problem. Everyone has to slow down to see what's happening, even though all lanes are clear and construction is well out of the way.

And when there is a lane closure for construction or an accident, why do we need to creep by the incident at 12MPH. OK, we're all in a single lane now, let's get moving!

Great point. I live in an area where the speed limit is 75mph, so most traffic is running 75-80. I have been behind folks that try to merge at 60, 50, 40mph. When I realize, I usually drop back and hold the car in 2nd (in the boxster) so I can get up to speed to actually merge.

I also see folks that wait until the last minute to merge even after driving over half a dozen arrows with text in their lane and multiple signs on the side of the road. It seems a bunch of them get to the merge point and are surprised.