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To: KarlInOhio

Don’t accelerate up to highway speed on an entrance ramp and expect everyone on the highway to deal with you merging in at 40 mph.

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I disagree with ya in this one. I call the right lane the “get on-get off lane”. Don’t be in it unless you are getting on or off. Get in the middle lane or the fast lane. And stay out of the way.


24 posted on 08/23/2010 8:41:37 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (PALIN/MCCAIN IN 2012 - barf alert? sarc tag? -- can't decide)
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To: Responsibility2nd

The right lane is for slower-moving traffic, not a free lane to be used only for merging and unmerging.

They spend a lot of money building special lanes for merging and getting off; they are called the merge lanes and the decelleration lanes. That is where people should accelerate and decellerate.

I dislike drivers who drive down the acceleration lane at 40mph, and then when you drop back and accelerate to get on the road, they cut into the right lane just as you are trying to merge at speed (although in honesty, if I’m accelerating faster than the car in front of me, it’s because I’m going to move over 2 lanes, because it would be discourteous to cut off someone in the acceleration lane who had to pull onto the highway at some point).

When using the acceleration lane, I tend to simply drop back early, to leave me enough space to accelerate to speed regardless of what the guy in front of me does.

I also dislike people who drive past people stuck in the deceleration lanes, and then stop in the right lane right at the final exit point with their blinker on expecting someone to let them in who has been waiting their turn to get off a road (this applies when there is a backup on the exit ramps).


109 posted on 08/23/2010 9:15:26 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: Responsibility2nd
I disagree with ya in this one. I call the right lane the “get on-get off lane”. Don’t be in it unless you are getting on or off. Get in the middle lane or the fast lane. And stay out of the way.

Limited access highways are planned with only a certain number of on/off ramps per number of miles. The right lane, also officially known as a Travel Lane is not just for getting on or off and driver education training stresses that when merging on to a highway the merging vehicles are supposed to MATCH the speed of highway traffic.

When that doesn't happen the traveling vehicles must slow down to accommodate the merging vehicles and that creates the traffic jams we see around interchanges.

Drivers in the merging vehicles are supposed to look at the highway traffic where they will merge and then not only try to pick a spot to merge but adjust their speed to that traffic. 65 MPH traffic is not supposed to jam on their brakes to try to let someone merge who does not have the ability to safely drive their vehicle and merge properly.

On any highway, the left lane is officially known as the PASSING lane, not the "fast lane" and all other lanes are called TRAVEL lanes.

175 posted on 08/23/2010 9:57:05 AM PDT by OldMissileer (Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, PK. Winners of the Cold War)
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To: Responsibility2nd

“Don’t accelerate up to highway speed on an entrance ramp and expect everyone on the highway to deal with you merging in at 40 mph.
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I disagree with ya in this one. I call the right lane the “get on-get off lane”. Don’t be in it unless you are getting on or off. Get in the middle lane or the fast lane. And stay out of the way.”

Wow I was going to go off on this one, then I saw who it was, so I’ll tone it down.

The merging driver should be moving close to the same speed as the traffic they are merging into at the bottom of the ramp. Especially if it’s busy, people have to use the right lane, so everyong “get[ting] in the middle lane or the fast lane” isn’t always feasible. Near rush hour, it’s completely impractical and downright dangerous.

If the merging driver doesn’t match speed, they force people to slow down behind them when they do merge. That “slowed down” area persists until traffic eases up significantly. This can — and does — cause accidents.

An accident might not happen right away. It might happen 10 minutes or more later. But if one does happen as a result of the “slowed down” area, the merger’s actions are the one that set up the conditions that caused it.

These accidents hurt and even kill people. The irony is that the slow merger won’t be there and probably won’t have any idea what they have caused. But the people hurt by the slow merger’s actions are still just as injured or dead.

Not joking. What someone is doing by merging into 55 or 60 mph traffic at 40 mph is VERY dangerous and really does get people hurt and killed.


226 posted on 08/23/2010 10:39:58 AM PDT by piytar (Those who never learned that peace and freedom are rare will be taught by reality.)
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