> bypassing a long queue of cars only to merge into the lane at the last possible second,
If everyone did this the jams would flow faster, according to WSDOT.
If everyone did this the jams would flow faster, according to WSDOT.
* The time spent adjacent to the traffic lane should be used calibrating your speed with the speed of traffic, once you're at the front you should then be able to merge into an open spot without causing any change to the speed of the cars behind you. So many times I see people zip quickly to the front then merge in and slam on their brakes, causing an extra delay to ripple back through traffic. Some people do this at the beginning of the merge lane which is even worse.
* Once you get there you should endeavor to zipper merge so multiple cars aren't trying to squeeze into one spot. As a corollary, if you're already in the lane that's being merged into you should leave an open space big enough for one vehicle to enter at this point, or better yet consider leaving the lane entirely.
* And by that I mean leave the lane to move deeper into the highway, don't exit into the merging lane just to zip ahead and cut back in, this decidedly does not improve traffic flows.
It's about reducing queue length (you use 2 lanes instead of one, so the queue length is halved) and smaller speed differences between cars on adjacent lanes.
I can't find a good WSDOT source, but here's Minesotta: https://www.dot.state.mn.us/trafficeng/workzone/doc/When-lat...
Anyway, I'm not talking about cases where one lane is closed (which is what WSDOT and the Minesotta doc talk about). I'm talking about cases where there is a one lane offroad from the highway, with a queue of cars waiting to take it. Plenty of people will skip the entire queue and try to merge right at the end, blocking half of their own lane while waiting for a gap in the queue.
You can change straight/right/left here and it all holds. Zipper merges are for merges, when 2 lanes of traffic become one, and everyone merging early is a little bit worse. Above is just selfish.