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Comment by amatecha | Hacker News Reader

In a lot of European countries, vehicles entering from the right (aka merging onto the highway) have the right of way, so even if they aren't necessarily up to speed, you have to let them in, or make room for them. This is one reason you'll see many people change out of the right lane just before a merge -- they are probably making room to let someone get in.

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This does certainly not extend to Germany. And I wonder in which European country this could be the case, as it sounds like a really bad idea.

There is the general rule of right-before-left on intersections in Germany and some other European countries. But this does NOT apply on highways, after all an on-ramp is no intersection.

The same is true in the USA.

And then, invariably, someone behind them will immediately change into the right lane and speed up to pass them on the right. Thereby making it even harder for the person merging to get in, while also pinning the person who made room for them in the middle lane, because there's suddenly a bunch of faster-moving traffic in the right lane.

It will tend to work out this way even when it's a 3-lane highway and the left-hand lane is wide open.

> In a lot of European countries, vehicles entering from the right (aka merging onto the highway) have the right of way

Really? In Ontario, entrance merge lanes are marked as if the opposite is true, with "lane ends 300 m" signs and painted lines all the way until it tapers off to nothing.

I'm not sure what the law says, but this creates the feeling that "you're lane is ending, not mine", and it's entirely up to entering traffic to match speed and find a gap. Basically, freeway traffic shouldn't adjust their speed unless it's the only way to let entering traffic enter (if there's no room).

In contrast, most US states seem to immediately merge the two lanes into one really wide lane that gradually (or rapidly) tapers down to normal width. Often without any warning signs for freeway traffic to expect merging traffic.

(Some US states also do this for exit ramps, which creates the dangerous situation where some drivers will accidentally take the exit at freeway speeds. This happened to me once at night, and I had to slam on the brakes before running the stop sign at the end.)

As a fellow Ontario driver it is of course polite to move over to the other lane if possible to give the merging car some room. Then you can move back of course.

Yes, I agree. If I can't move over, and there's not room for entering vehicles, then I slow down to create enough space for a single vehicle (zipper merge fashion).

> Here lies the body of Henry Gray

> He died defending his right of way.

> His way was right, his will was strong,

> But he’s just as dead as if he was wrong.

I don't care that I have the right of way as I merge into the highway. I have no idea if the idiot who is doing 65 mph in the right-most lane, who clearly sees my merge maneuver is planning on slamming on the brakes after I merge in, or slamming into me.

I may technically have the right of way, but I sure as hell am not going to bet my life on it.

In the Netherlands at least, if you can't find a spot to merge from the onramp lane, you are to stop and wait for a better moment to merge. This never happens in practice though, because drivers on the rightmost lane will commonly either move a lane to the left, or if they can't, change their speed a little to accommodate you. But that's a courtesy, not a rule.

Nope! On ramps do not have right of way speaking for Germany Austria and Italy here. By any means move over for merging traffic if you can but don't endanger yourself or others by jumping out of your lane for merging traffic.

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