Crazy Accident
I just wanted to relate an incident that happened to me a couple of years ago. There's another post about an accident that made me think about this one. I was towing a travel trailer down I-65 a...
Forum Discussion
Beemerphile...your little merge cartoon is just that- a cartoon.
Your "right way to merge" only works when traffic is light. It would require that the highway be operating at less than 1/2 capacity getting shoved into one lane that would then be near capacity (or actually still less than full capacity if you want things to go smoothly). So again- "light traffic is required"
However, if both lanes are anything more than halfway full, when they merge to one lane, they are MORE than full and folks have to start slowing down to address the improperly short following distance that results.
And for the situation where both lanes are "essentially full" to start with...do your math...suddenly the following distance is cut in half (more than half since there's a vehicle in there too), so speed must be cut in half and things simply choke down.
I agree that merging could often be more graceful, but it's not a matter of a pretty little cartoon and it's not going to prevent a backup.
Your "right way to merge" only works when traffic is light. It would require that the highway be operating at less than 1/2 capacity getting shoved into one lane that would then be near capacity (or actually still less than full capacity if you want things to go smoothly). So again- "light traffic is required"
However, if both lanes are anything more than halfway full, when they merge to one lane, they are MORE than full and folks have to start slowing down to address the improperly short following distance that results.
And for the situation where both lanes are "essentially full" to start with...do your math...suddenly the following distance is cut in half (more than half since there's a vehicle in there too), so speed must be cut in half and things simply choke down.
I agree that merging could often be more graceful, but it's not a matter of a pretty little cartoon and it's not going to prevent a backup.
