Quote:
Originally Posted by mrkajz44
The attitude of "I'm not going to help out the person merging" is a nice microcosm for society these days. Nothing of benefit is really gained from not helping out whomever is merging, but it can be to a large detriment to the one merging. A little courtesy is actually better for both parties in the aggregate, but one party cannot fathom "losing" a bit to help out someone else.
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Yep. And a lot of people (not just the strugglers) still don’t seem to understand merges.
If you’re in the lane being merged into,
you have no more right to your stretch of the road than the car merging into your lane. If you held your speed, the merging car got up to speed, and the two vehicles collided, you would be at no less fault for the collision than the merging vehicle.
It’s not a courtesy to make space for the merging vehicle. It’s your responsibility. And not only your responsibility - it’s the responsibility of the vehicles in the next lane over as well. If one lane of traffic is merging into two existing lanes, drivers are supposed to treat it as three lanes merging into two, with no vehicle in any lane having precedence over the other.
10-15 years ago, the government (don’t know if it was the city or province) launched an information campaign and posted signs all over the place with diagrams showing how merges are supposed to work. Clearly the campaign didn’t have much effect.