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Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

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Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#141

Post by blahedo »

A lot of people and a lot of articles discuss resistance to this as a matter of misguided "politeness", and a LOT of the support for it carries a tone of smugness---there is definitely a weirdly emotional component to this.

But here's the fairly objective thing I want to know: the people who have been (very negatively!) described as "early merge vigilantes" generally operate by staying in the lane that goes away but pacing the cars in the other lane, blocking the people behind them from zooming ahead; and then quickly merging just before the lane goes away (usually an enabler in the other lane will make this work better so neither has to slow down or stop at this point). So here's the question: isn't this exactly what the zipper merge is supposed to accomplish, with both lanes travelling the same speed? Why is this so-called "vigilante" behaviour being described as bad? If a driver that's smug about their late-merging behaviour being optimal is going noticeably faster in their lane than the lane that merged, doesn't that mean that what they're doing is exactly not a zipper merge?

Perhaps the answer is that the ideal to aim for is not "late" merging, so much as "speed matching" merging: when there is a merge ahead, if you're in the faster of the two lanes (whichever one that is!), slow down a smidge now and then you won't have to screech to a braking halt at the merge point (and you'll also make the flow better for everyone behind you). Zooming ahead because there's a briefly clear section of road may be "late" merging in some sense, but is not the same thing as "zipper" merging and is not improving flow.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#142

Post by peterwwillis »

notacoward wrote: post #27

Zipper merging works great as long as everyone on both sides is willing to alternate (or if strong enforcement requires them to do so). Otherwise, letting "late mergers" scream past fifty "early mergers" often creates a situation worse than simple early merge. There's plenty of blame to go around. * The vast majority of the people blasting down the late-merge lane clearly have no interest in alternating or merging in…

Hello, my name is Peter, and i'm a late-merger. But where I come from it's just called "Florida driving".

In Florida, we all have a non-verbal mutual agreement that we're all trying to screw each other out of the best spot in the road. We all want to be going faster than everyone else, we all want to get to the front of the line and skip all the chumps, we all want to move into the lane we think will move the fastest at a red light, and we all think turn signals will just warn someone when we're trying to get ahead so they can take our spot on the road.

It honestly wouldn't be so bad if we could keep the speeding and aggressive driving controlled, but there's an unusual number of highways with ridiculously reduced speed limits (55mph on I-95 in Miami, I shit you not.... right around a large stretch of road where 45mph is the minimum speed limit) and a lot of assholes who think they're more important than everyone else. Not much you can do about it, other than a "fast lane", which is basically what they've created for a large stretch of I-95 combined with the Sunpass system.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#143

Post by TheSoftwareGuy »

malandrew wrote: post #35

That video explanation made no sense to me. Basically the "interface" presented to the drivers has not changed, so why would drivers deviate from how they currently merge? Because the government said so? I don't see this working. However there are two solutions that could promote zipper merging: (1) Force both lanes to the center before moving that center lane to the side that is available ahead: ____________________…

I like option one, but I don't think it works if there are more than two lanes

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#144

Post by lamontcg »

blahedo wrote: post #141

A lot of people and a lot of articles discuss resistance to this as a matter of misguided "politeness", and a LOT of the support for it carries a tone of smugness---there is definitely a weirdly emotional component to this. But here's the fairly objective thing I want to know: the people who have been (very negatively!) described as "early merge vigilantes" generally operate by staying in the lane that goes away but…

The point is also to fill both lanes, so your last suggestion doesn't work very well.

And I've been known to be a "vigilante" before. I'd give it up in a second if people would actually start filling the other lane.

There's a merge here in Seattle -- the southbound I-5 collector-distributor with the onramp to 90 where it merges back into I-5 -- where people zipper halfway reasonably well and I actually routinely stay in the less-filled lane and late-merge.

Washingtonians are awful at late merging/zippering though. Even when people are late merging you get tons of people merging early and then the line moves forwards and it screws over the lane that is being merged into. People just won't simply drive forwards to the merge spot.

Dividers might help in some cases, but when the road is empty and everyone is doing 60+ mph the dividers are going to cause accidents. You could try to put down double lines on the road to block merging, but nobody pays attention to those here either.

Getting zippering into drivers ed and getting them early, spamming the TV with ads, and putting signs up all over the place and carpet bombing the message might work.

Happy to see them doing this.

Oh yeah, and there's definitely an emotional component to it. When I'm stuck behind 50 cars and some asshat in a BMW goes speeding past to late merge the world goes completely red. I would love to stop doing that. If everyone zippers the asshat just has to pick a lane like everyone else, and there's no way to "cheat".

And yes, "asshat" and "cheat" are all in my own brain. I find it extremely difficult to stop thinking that way when I see it though.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#145

Post by bsdetector »

blahedo wrote: post #141

A lot of people and a lot of articles discuss resistance to this as a matter of misguided "politeness", and a LOT of the support for it carries a tone of smugness---there is definitely a weirdly emotional component to this. But here's the fairly objective thing I want to know: the people who have been (very negatively!) described as "early merge vigilantes" generally operate by staying in the lane that goes away but…

It's actually really simple: early merge with cars going the same speed in all lanes is always better. You'll always get maximum throughput in the lanes remaining open, because the merge happens over a distance and so is smoother.

But that's in theory, with people actually cooperating. In reality no matter what education campaign for early merge some few percent of people are just dicks, and when they see an open road ahead will zoom through at twice the speed and this is what causes the merge problem (see the green car in video).

When people espouse late zipper merge it makes me sad because of what it says about human nature.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#146

Post by Chronic29 »

craigds wrote: post #58
molf wrote: post #9

I'm surprised this is written like zipper merging is some kind of recently discovered secret. Zipper merging (or weaving) has been standard practice in parts of Europe for 20 years (maybe longer – I can't really remember anything else). Since March 2014 it is even mandatory in Belgium, and anyone merging early may risk a €55 fine [1]. It has been repeatedly advocated and promoted by various governments in Europe [2]…

Agreed. Zipper merging has been standard practice in New Zealand my whole (28 year) life. Except we call it "zip merging" because "zipper" sounds awfully foreign around here. I didn't know there was another way to merge until I read this article.

It is because of comments like this why I visit HN less and less each day. This is essentially a "plus one" style post with a short anecdotal example that contributes little to the discussion.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#147

Post by teamonkey »

o0-0o wrote: post #33
beejiu wrote: post #29

As a driver in the UK, I don't understand what exactly the difference between a merge and an overtake is. It is quite common here for roads to change from 2 lanes to 1 lane. There's no signage telling you to merge. There's no rules telling you what to do. You just operate by the same logic as an overtake, and you'll find that, quite naturally, everybody 'zip merges'. Perhaps the reason for the inefficiency is having…

The difference is localized. The UK is much smaller, and therefore has less regional tastes about merging. In the Midwest and Eastern seaboards of the US you have polite and diverse people respectively. In California, you have experienced drivers. California works like the zipper merge already, and the rest of the US is flummoxed by what to do - depending on where you are.

I don't think it's so much about being smaller, more that there is only one set of rules for the whole country and those rules are more strongly enforced. Also, from what I can tell, the driving exam is far more rigorous in the UK.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#149

Post by [deleted] »

wfjackson wrote: post #130
morsch wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thinking. Apparently your option 2 was implemented (and considered an innovation) around where I live. Here's a picture from 2007: http://www.strassen.nrw.de/_down/pi-070322-03.jpg I don't know if they're still doing it. (Late merging has long been the default in Europe and is taught in driver's ed. However people seem to do it more reliably when reminded of the practice.)

I wonder if there's an option 3, install a mobile traffic light that allows one lane only at one time, in sequences of one minute or so each, i.e Alternating red and green lights, so that there is no need for merging. This way there's no slowdown caused by the merging, I feel that this method may actually make it faster overall. ____________________________________________ Green _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __________________…

[deleted]

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#150

Post by korzun »

DanBC wrote: post #39
korzun wrote: post #36

Want faster and safer traffic merging? > Part of DMV road test should cover highway and emergency (road block) situations. > Utilize responsive testing (how fast person reacts to something). Could be an in-house application. > Older drivers should have extra testing once they hit certain age. > Re-test drivers every 10 years. > Driving and doing your make up? Reading a book/iPad? Eating chipotle? License suspension.…

> In general every situation where I had to steer out of the way was caused by an older person who should NOT be driving. Do you have any statistics about driving accidents? Because all the stats I've seen show that older drivers are safer better drivers than young people, and this is especially true when comparing to young males under the age of 26.

Those statistics do not include cases where older person switches lanes into your car and you luckily avoid it.

They also do not include cases where other people cause accidents and go on their marry way while you wreck your vehicle avoiding them.

Like the other poster stated, it's young (novice drivers) and old drivers.

It's also a scientific fact that you reaction time decreases as you grow older.

>Because all the stats I've seen show that older drivers are safer better drivers than young people.

Sure.

http://consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/10/teenagers-an...

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/older_adult_drivers/ad...

> Age-related declines in vision and cognitive functioning (ability to reason and remember), as well as physical changes, may affect some older adults' driving abilities.5

> Per mile traveled, fatal crash rates increase starting at age 75 and increase notably after age 80. This is largely due to increased susceptibility to injury and medical complications among older drivers rather than an increased tendency to get into crashes

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