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People to Punch, Pet Peeves, and General Vexations (mega-merge)

I am a proud son of Ohio but it is one of the worst states in the union for morons driving slow in the left lane.

Anyone who has ever taken drivers ed has been taught that it's a common courtesy thing. Slower traffic keep right.
I love Columbus because it is a fairly populous area with pretty mild traffic. The only exceptions to this are caused by 3 things:

1) Poor road planning. For the most part, this is limited to surface streets.

2) Entitled drivers in the fast lane that drive too slow.

3) Entitled drivers who feel the entire freeway should slam on their brakes to preserve their privilege to exit from the middle lane to the off-ramp, thereby ensuring a snowball effect that lures hundreds of other jerks to do the same and make the exit ramp back up for a mile.
 
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A couple things today. In keeping with the entitled driver theme, the folks that just can't be relegated to merging in at the back of the line at an obvious lane reduction. By all means please feel free to go all the way to the merge point, turn on your blinker and force your way in. No need to wait you are special and your time is more valuable than those of us who merge courteously and with regard for others.

Second one, it is early July and already the vote for me signs are littering the landscape....:mad2:
 
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A couple things today. In keeping with the entitled driver theme, the folks that just can't be relegated to merging in at the back of the line at an obvious lane reduction. By all means please feel free to go all the way to the merge point, turn on your blinker and force your way in. No need to wait you are special and your time is more valuable than those of us who merge courteously and with regard for others.

Well, to be fair......

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/the-beauty-of-zipper-merging-or-why-you-should-drive-ruder/
 
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A couple things today. In keeping with the entitled driver theme, the folks that just can't be relegated to merging in at the back of the line at an obvious lane reduction. By all means please feel free to go all the way to the merge point, turn on your blinker and force your way in. No need to wait you are special and your time is more valuable than those of us who merge courteously and with regard for others.

Second one, it is early July and already the vote for me signs are littering the landscape....:mad2:
Budgers are awesome...getting on the inner belt takes at least 10 extra minutes because of it
 
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That's about lane reduction, which is rarely a huge problem. It's a bit annoying but usually doesn't cause major issues unless traffic is already heavy.

The problem is telling one hundred cars that you're a VIP and that ALL of them must slam on their brakes to accomodate your sudden leap sideways (at 30-60 mph) into a 30 foot gap of cars traveling under 10 mph.

With the lane reduction, there's a chance of everyone meshing in tight spaces but keeping things flowing. With the VIP budger (new term to me), he has to slam on his brakes to not slam into the slow/stopped cars (and/or exit) and now force the 10-100 cars behind him to do the same, which creates a vicious cycle of even more budgers.
 
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That's about lane reduction, which is rarely a huge problem. It's a bit annoying but usually doesn't cause major issues unless traffic is already heavy.

The problem is telling one hundred cars that you're a VIP and that ALL of them must slam on their brakes to accomodate your sudden leap sideways (at 30-60 mph) into a 30 foot gap of cars traveling under 10 mph.

With the lane reduction, there's a chance of everyone meshing in tight spaces but keeping things flowing. With the VIP budger (new term to me), he has to slam on his brakes to not slam into the slow/stopped cars (and/or exit) and now force the 10-100 cars behind him to do the same, which creates a vicious cycle of even more budgers.

Well, @buckeyebri specifically mentioned lane reduction, yes? I read his complaint as being in regards to the situation I presented, not the one you presented. And the article specifically mentions that it doesn't work as efficiently when traffic is moving -- if everyone is cruising along at 30 and one a-hole pulls your trick, yes that will screw things up. But if both lanes are full at 10 MPH, the zipper works better.

The problem is that people don't use both lanes and instead will stop in their lane to merge 1/4 mile before the merge point, which just creates more congestion and backs the traffic up even further. And then the guy who understands that using all of the available road and drives all the way to the merge point becomes an a-hole for going all the way up there. But......if everyone would have been going all the way to the merge point originally, it wouldn't have been as screwed up!
 
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Well, @buckeyebri specifically mentioned lane reduction, yes? I read his complaint as being in regards to the situation I presented, not the one you presented. And the article specifically mentions that it doesn't work as efficiently when traffic is moving -- if everyone is cruising along at 30 and one a-hole pulls your trick, yes that will screw things up. But if both lanes are full at 10 MPH, the zipper works better.
I'm sorry, do you expect me to read? :lol:
The problem is that people don't use both lanes and instead will stop in their lane to merge 1/4 mile before the merge point, which just creates more congestion and backs the traffic up even further. And then the guy who understands that using all of the available road and drives all the way to the merge point becomes an a-hole for going all the way up there. But......if everyone would have been going all the way to the merge point originally, it wouldn't have been as screwed up!
I can't wait for the first computer glitch in those situations.
 
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Well, @buckeyebri specifically mentioned lane reduction, yes? I read his complaint as being in regards to the situation I presented, not the one you presented. And the article specifically mentions that it doesn't work as efficiently when traffic is moving -- if everyone is cruising along at 30 and one a-hole pulls your trick, yes that will screw things up. But if both lanes are full at 10 MPH, the zipper works better.

The problem is that people don't use both lanes and instead will stop in their lane to merge 1/4 mile before the merge point, which just creates more congestion and backs the traffic up even further. And then the guy who understands that using all of the available road and drives all the way to the merge point becomes an a-hole for going all the way up there. But......if everyone would have been going all the way to the merge point originally, it wouldn't have been as screwed up!
Oh, so you're that asshole! I get in now.
 
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Well, @buckeyebri specifically mentioned lane reduction, yes? I read his complaint as being in regards to the situation I presented, not the one you presented. And the article specifically mentions that it doesn't work as efficiently when traffic is moving -- if everyone is cruising along at 30 and one a-hole pulls your trick, yes that will screw things up. But if both lanes are full at 10 MPH, the zipper works better.

The problem is that people don't use both lanes and instead will stop in their lane to merge 1/4 mile before the merge point, which just creates more congestion and backs the traffic up even further. And then the guy who understands that using all of the available road and drives all the way to the merge point becomes an a-hole for going all the way up there. But......if everyone would have been going all the way to the merge point originally, it wouldn't have been as screwed up!

I'm thinking of 315 N just past 270 for the situation you describe perfectly... And then there's the follow-up issue of lane-enforcement tough guys*, who waited all that time in the right lane, and danged if they're gonna let a left-lane interloper get over on them, so they just hang out in the middle taking up both lanes. Screw that too.

* - while I said tough guys, this is just as likely to be a lady in a big expensive SUV.
 
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Oh, so you're that asshole! I get in now.

Surprisingly not! I usually merge at the first opportunity and ride out the wait....I just don't get as irked as I used to when others merge later. Now, if I'm getting onto a freeway and the lane I'm merging into is stopped, I will head to the merge point every time, which probably fits the bill here, but I won't apologize for that. No point in starting the backup further back than it needs to be.
 
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Oh definitely, but it's going to get ugly when the computer melts down. If we thought we were grumpy, awful people with other humans, wait until the computer fails with something obvious.

We're already there.

Death Sparks 'Autopilot' Car Probe

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/tesla-drivers-death-cars-autopilot-probed-nhtsa-40270925

He was killed May 7 in Williston, Florida, when his car's cameras failed to distinguish the white side of a turning tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn't automatically activate the brakes
 
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