Alt text:
This PSA brought to you by several would-be assassins who tried to wave me in front of speeding cars in the last month and who will have to try harder next time.
this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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I used to have a job where I drove a box truck. It was slow empty and painfully slow full. It was also speed limited to 75mph. So I would tend to hang out with the semis on the hwy. One time I was driving down the hwy and this guy in a pretty new Volvo( so the fast ones) was coming down the on ramp. I could see he was going to merge right in front of me so I slowed down to give him some space. I figured he would want to be in front of the slow box truck. As he got close to the merge he slowed down so he was even with me. I gave him a little more space to merge in front of me and slowed down again. He had plenty of room left in the on merge lane if just used the skinny pedal. Instead he waited until was almost out of room then started honking at me. I did my best to speed up my painfully slow box truck but I am sure he has to slow down to the point he was merging at 45mph as everyone was doing 75-80mph. I am sure he was cursing me too because he wasn't willing to get up to hwy speed before merging.
I was taught it was the responsibility of the car getting on the highway to match the speed of the cars on the highway. If you’re already on the highway, keep a constant speed so the people getting on can match you. So he kept having to slow down because you were also slowing down. Just like the assassin pretending to be nice in the diagram, I think you were technically in the wrong here.
I have a question on this. Let's assume everyone is a perfect driver and must have at least a 2 second following distance at all times. If there's a free flowing queue of traffic on the highway with 2-4 second gaps between, merging in is impossible without someone slowing down and letting you in. Every time I merge this situation stresses me out.
Merge into the gap, then slow down slightly to extend the space in front of you, and let the guy behind you slow down to extend the space in front of him. It’s not complicated