"Nobody would be so down-to-the-bone stupid as to suggest that both lanes shouldn't be used until the merge is required."
And yet I frequently encounter truck drivers blocking off the closing lane as far as a mile from the bottleneck. Why do they do this? They're not trying to merge, they're trying to force others to merge sooner than need be.
I feel bad for the trucks. They know people should wait until the end to merge. But they know people merge miles in front.
And where does almost EVERY car merge? Into the space right in front of the truck, which opens when the cars move but it takes the truck a little while to get going.
And the truck would love to roll back up to the back of the car, but instead gets cut off by the merging cars.
So while it's annoying, I don't get mad at them for blocking the road sometimes. They are just trying to get a few stop-and-goes in where they don't get cut off by another car.