Late To The Merge
Posted on | August 21, 2008 at 5:54 am | 4 Comments
Regular readers of this blog know that I like to talk about traffic a lot. Driving and roads and traffic and drivers and pedestrians and bicyclists fascinate, and infuriate, me. In last Thursday’s Rocky Mountain News, there was a review of a book called Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt. The book looks very interesting and I want to read it. That review led me to Tom’s traffic blog: How We Drive, which has enthralled me lately.
The book and the website debunk a lot of preconceived notions that people have about traffic and traffic flow. I know that I myself detest roundabouts, even though study after study shows that they are a Good Thing. I follow traffic reports even though I know they don’t do any good. I drive fast even though I know I should drive slower. Vanderbilt is one of the primary advocates, or converts of the “late merge”, which postulates that it’s better to be one of those douchebags who wait until the end of a lane before merging into an adjacent one, because the roads are designed that way and traffic would flow smoother if everyone did that. I guess I believe the people who say this, but I still find it hard to do that and put up with the nasty looks from the other drivers. Besides, I’m always early for everything.
I know that in many ways I’m a bad driver and that I’m probably too aggressive, but apparently like all drivers, I consider myself to be a good driver. Or at least a better driver than most of them out there. I do think I’m better at always keeping track of the traffic patterns around me and anticipating potentially bad situations. But maybe I’m just deluding myself.
I look forward to delving into this World of the Road in more depth.
More to come, I’m sure…
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “i don’t believe teenagers are children”.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Comments
4 Responses to “Late To The Merge”
August 21st, 2008 @ 5:07 pm
I’ve often said that big city drivers – even, or especially?, in L.A. – are probably better than they seem. Traffic can be full of action and excitement there (and most other big cities), but with the streets so clogged and narrow in most of the city, even a few accidents per day in any one area would bring things to a permanent standstill. So people must somehow be managing to avoid killing each other too much. I try to hold that thought while slaloming along I-10, bumper-to-bumper at 80mph…
August 21st, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
Re “the late merge”: I think it depends upon the situation. If you’re having to merge because of a lane closing, and everyone else has already merged, and you think you can gain three car lengths by zipping ahead in the lane about to be closed and then bullnosing your way into the flow of traffic…well, that’s called “driving like a dickhead.” However, it’s certainly true that when there’s a lot of space to merge and no particular reason to merge right then, it’s easier to wait a bit and merge later rather than be among the crowd trying to merge too soon. This is particularly true when entrance and exit ramps are relatively close together so you have entering vehicles trying to merge with the main traffic lanes while exiting vehicles try to leave the main traffic lanes…at the same time and to the same lane that the entering vehicles are trying to leave. Seems like most the time, if you’re moving toward an exit lane, you can get past that semi-congestion and still have plenty of time to get to the exit lane without Blues-Brothering it two lanes at the last second.
Amusing thing about big-city driving: we have some friends who are LA natives, and they’re always complaining that Milwaukee drivers don’t know how to drive and that everyone in LA is so much better. So they’re visiting us here in Milwaukee, and this idiot car cuts us off for no good reason. We’re all yelling at the car…when we notice that, yes, it has California plates. Heh.
August 21st, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
I think there’s more than a couple definitions of a “good” driver. Safe? Polite? Rational/efficient? When it comes to “judgment”, are we talking about the split-second kind where you’re figuring out how to swerve, or the kind where you look at the weather and realize the roads will have iced up by the time you’re ready to come home?
There’s a lot of measures to get to that bottom-line value judgment we all love to tag things with. I could write a whole blog just on regional differences I’ve encountered by driving in each of the 48 continental states. But, I won’t.
August 23rd, 2008 @ 11:15 am
If you’re having to merge because of a lane closing, and everyone else has already merged, and you think you can gain three car lengths by zipping ahead in the lane about to be closed and then bullnosing your way into the flow of traffic…well, that’s called “driving like a dickhead.”
I’m not sure, but I think that’s exactly the kind of thing that Vanderbilt and the Late Mergers do advocate. Although I guess you shouldn’t flaunt it, and like wave at the people you’re passing.