5 ms·

Slow down a bit to create another buffer. You can even do this before they have merged, as part of the bit where you allow them to safely merge. I think if you

by ehnto 8mo ago

Slow down a bit to create another buffer. You can even do this before they have merged, as part of the bit where you allow them to safely merge. I think if you reflect a bit you'll find you are being the same kind of person as them, if you are getting angry that you have to slow down and give up space for someone else. I understand some people can be aggressive though, that can be frustrating regardless of the outcome.

crazygringo 8mo ago
I don't think you're understanding. The point is that 20 people in a row will take advantage of your buffer to slow you down again and again and again, which makes you get to your destination later... because they're being selfish to get somewhere faster, and you're not so you get to where you're going slower. We're not talking about where they're changing lanes to take the next exit. We're talking about where your lane happens to be moving faster, so they merge in front of you in an unsafe way to take advantage of that and just stay there. Why should you be expected to give them space, as you suggest? How is that fair, that they should get to their destination faster instead of you? Do you not see how that's going to rightfully make someone angry? When they should be waiting for a safe space to open up, rather than forcing you to slow down to create one?
- carshodev 8mo ago
  If you actually want the safest option then you should merge all the way right and keep slowing down. Noone is going to merge right if they are trying to go faster, they will only do it to get off the offramp. Meaning the gap will reopen as people exit through the offramp or merge left into faster lanes. If you choose to go in the fastlane in traffic you should understand that it will have people who do not care about the following distance as much and are just trying to go as fast as possible. I have found that often times in heavy traffic the rightmost lane can be just as fast or actually faster than a middle or left lane.
  - crazygringo 8mo ago
    > If you choose to go in the fastlane in traffic you should understand that it will have people who do not care about the following distance as much and are just trying to go as fast as possible. It's not about choosing to go in the fast lane. It's about the fact that in heavy traffic, you have no idea which lane will be fastest, because they're all heavy and which one is fastest keeps switching. > I have found that often times in heavy traffic the rightmost lane can be just as fast or actually faster than a middle or left lane. That's exactly my point. Which is why you can be in the right lane, and tons of people from the slower lane will try to merge in front of you if you're keeping a safe distance from the car in front. Your advice is staying in the right lane doesn't apply in these situations.
    - CGMthrowaway 8mo ago
      This is a long thread of people talking past each other. The bottom line is simply this: if you want to drive with a larger-than-average following distance (call it whatever you want, a safety buffer, a "proper" following distance, the point is it is a distance less than the average following distance of the other drivers on the road) then you have to accept that you will not be able to drive at the same speed as the other traffic on the road. It's physically impossible. It can be psychologically frustrating because you see all the cars around you moving at X mph but your self-imposed constraints mean you can only make way at (X minus Y) mph. But them's the breaks, no pun intended
      - Barbing 8mo ago
        >It can be psychologically frustrating True, though- I like being a traffic hacker--come on in, plenty of room!
        CGMthrowaway 8mo ago
        Weaving into the little spaces is my version of traffic hacking. I estimate every time I can do that, I shave 1-2 seconds off of my commute.
- ehnto 8mo ago
  I understand perfectly, 20 years driving, I think people just don't like that the safe answer is to be slow. You will not fix others behaviour, so your options are be slow and generous, get out of the chaotic lanes (unless that's all of them), or join them and be aggressive, claim space, be stressed and annoyed your whole trip. There is no solution to traffic here sorry, this is more about managing your own frustration and expectations when faced with people at their worst, in the worst form of transport. The total, confirmed, 100% effective solution is to never commute by highway during peak hours, but few get that option.
  - apparent 8mo ago
    It is more dangerous to be slow and have people constantly merging in front of you, rather than be slightly faster and not have all the merging. Accidents happen when vehicles are going different speeds, all things equal.
    - kqr 8mo ago
      That seems like a surprising enough statement to be backed up by data. What is your source? Everything I've read points toward larger margins of safety (longer distances, slower speeds) being safer. See e.g. https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/252480/252480.pdf https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/252480...
      - apparent 8mo ago
        Obviously it is safer to have longer follow distances, all things equal. But you don't accomplish that if you leave a long follow distance that is cut off a few seconds later by another car trying to get ahead. You end up with a constant stream of cars cutting your follow distance to less than what it would have been if you had just stayed slightly closer to the car in front of you. We don't live in an ideal world, and having a bunch of cars merging in front of you definitely makes you less safe than having a static situation. I try to make sure I can see through/around the car in front of me, so that I have advance notice of what's happening down the road.
    - 8mo ago
- pphysch 8mo ago
  > 20 people in a row will take advantage of your buffer to slow you down again and again and again, which makes you get to your destination later... 30 seconds later, so what?
- kortilla 8mo ago
  20 people in a row is like 200 meters. Absolutely negligible to your travel time.
- mistercheph 8mo ago
  60 (20*3) car lengths at 20 mph is 30 seconds
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  You mean 20 people who were trying to merge finally get to merge because someone came past who wasn't a massive asshole?
  - lazide 8mo ago
    That person then gets screwed. Screwed person: WTF? People doing the screwing: ‘oh thank god’ The really irritating part - society saying ‘oh, that’s not happening you should continue to be screwed’
    - bluGill 8mo ago
      Nobody is getting screwed. I've been the person making the gap many many times. You just ignore them, it isn't hard - they are way up there and I'm way back here, plenty of space. I just keep on with my business of safely driving. Sure I often wish I could go the speed limit - but in reality I'm going almost as fast as they are so it isn't like a few feet lost costs me anything. Odds are I'll be stopped at a red light and lose a lot more time once I get off the highway. Besides, there are only a few people who ever merge in front of me (and then those who don't merge block their lane so nobody else can get in).
      - lazide 8mo ago
        In high traffic you’re definitely being screwed - both by the continuing lack of a proper safety gap, and by not being able to go a normal speed. Which does add up in many of these situations. But I guess we should just all self gaslight to feel better about it?
        bluGill 8mo ago
        In heavy traffic nobody is going "normal speed". I'm not going significantly slower than anyone else.
        lazide 8mo ago
- Spooky23 8mo ago
  You’re the problem because of the way you are thinking. You don’t own the asphalt in front of you. You’re angry because in your mind you do, and you feel righteous about it. That’s why you are casting a moral judgement about them. The most efficient throughput of the road system is not for people to “politely” queue up for 5 miles. People should be utilizing the rod and merging in an orderly manner. By adopting some arbitrary self imposed practice that is leading to 20 drivers cutting in front of you, are the one creating an unsafe situation.
  - maerF0x0 8mo ago
    > You don’t own the asphalt in front of you. Correct, but you _need_ the asphalt in front of you for both safe driving and also to avoid cascading hard braking events. I also don't own the asphalt under me or behind me too, so it's kinda a silly statement tbh. This youtube talks about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE
    - Spooky23 8mo ago
      You do, but if you leave so much that 20 cars are pulling in front of you, you’ve either driving too slow or misjudged and left unnecessary space. At 15-20 mph traffic speeds, you need 8-20 feet. Ideally, cars in a multiple lane to one lane exit scenario should be zipper merging when congestion reduces speeds. Engineers model this behavior and try to design roads to encourage it. If you do that and get angry when people change lanes in front of you, you have consciously or subconsciously decided you own that 20 foot gap. That reaction impairs judgement and causes accidents.
- drewgross 8mo ago
  If 20 people take advantage of your buffer, then you are delayed by a distance of 20 vehicle-lengths + 20 follow-distances. This is about 1000 meters, a distance which you can travel in about 45 seconds. So the net effect of all 20 people merging in front of you is less than a minute delay on your trip. Unless there is an almost constant stream of people merging in front of you, this isn't adding up to more than a percentage point of two of your whole trip.
spike021 8mo ago
you missed the fact that most people either aren't signaling or do it right as they're already cutting in. that's hardly safe when it's already tight with a safety buffer as it is. provided they use a signal as required by law and taught in the drivers handbook, they'd likely be let into the new lane without any judgement.
lordloki 8mo ago
-Slow down a bit to create another buffer. Now you've just created a shockwave traffic jam.
- sfn42 8mo ago
  No. That happens when people drive too close to each other and brake. Not when you let off the gas slightly to maintain a gap which prevents this exact thing. The entire reason this happens is because 98% of people are morons who drive up the next guy's ass. If everyone kept a proper distance it wouldn't happen at all.
- alistairSH 8mo ago
  No, the person who wedged themselves into an unsafe/too-short opening created the shockwave traffic jam. But, yeah, that's the end result.
adolph 8mo ago
>> It's frustrating because . . . > Slow down a bit to create another buffer > I think if you reflect a bit you'll find The parent post does return to the psycho-emotional layer of the problem but on the whole the exchange brings to mind the "two movies, one screen" model of perennial problems. In many of the comments here some people emphasize the problem in terms of physics and some see the problem in terms of psychology (both have overlap and are valid). A third perspective may be "game theory." I think the Prisoner's Dilemma [0] could explain some aspects of the physical/mental problem. In the set below, Driver A's strategy isn't dependent on a singular predictable Driver B but all drivers that may perform the role of Driver B during the course of a commute. Agent Cooperate Defect Driver A leaves space doesn't Driver B^n merge stay Leaving aside all times in which a Driver B must merge, such as lane ending zippers or merging to approach an exit lane, Driver B merges because there is some advantage to being in the lane of Driver A. If Driver A maintains space they will not just lose to one Driver B but to all Driver Bs. I conjecture that this is a collective action problem and that above a certain traffic saturation point there must be a social taboo against changing lanes. This is not to claim that individual perspective shifting is not important. I am reminded of Foster Wallace's Kenyon address "This is Water," [1] quoted below. However, the task of changing individual perspectives is vastly higher energy than the creation of a social taboo, which is why purity codes and other social inhibitors are so prevalent. If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. [...] The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. [...] [Maybe] the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma 1. https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/

by ehnto 8mo ago

crazygringo 8mo ago

I don't think you're understanding. The point is that 20 people in a row will take advantage of your buffer to slow you down again and again and again, which makes you get to your destination later... because they're being selfish to get somewhere faster, and you're not so you get to where you're going slower. We're not talking about where they're changing lanes to take the next exit. We're talking about where your lane happens to be moving faster, so they merge in front of you in an unsafe way to take advantage of that and just stay there. Why should you be expected to give them space, as you suggest? How is that fair, that they should get to their destination faster instead of you? Do you not see how that's going to rightfully make someone angry? When they should be waiting for a safe space to open up, rather than forcing you to slow down to create one?

carshodev 8mo ago
If you actually want the safest option then you should merge all the way right and keep slowing down. Noone is going to merge right if they are trying to go faster, they will only do it to get off the offramp. Meaning the gap will reopen as people exit through the offramp or merge left into faster lanes. If you choose to go in the fastlane in traffic you should understand that it will have people who do not care about the following distance as much and are just trying to go as fast as possible. I have found that often times in heavy traffic the rightmost lane can be just as fast or actually faster than a middle or left lane.
- crazygringo 8mo ago
  > If you choose to go in the fastlane in traffic you should understand that it will have people who do not care about the following distance as much and are just trying to go as fast as possible. It's not about choosing to go in the fast lane. It's about the fact that in heavy traffic, you have no idea which lane will be fastest, because they're all heavy and which one is fastest keeps switching. > I have found that often times in heavy traffic the rightmost lane can be just as fast or actually faster than a middle or left lane. That's exactly my point. Which is why you can be in the right lane, and tons of people from the slower lane will try to merge in front of you if you're keeping a safe distance from the car in front. Your advice is staying in the right lane doesn't apply in these situations.
  - CGMthrowaway 8mo ago
    This is a long thread of people talking past each other. The bottom line is simply this: if you want to drive with a larger-than-average following distance (call it whatever you want, a safety buffer, a "proper" following distance, the point is it is a distance less than the average following distance of the other drivers on the road) then you have to accept that you will not be able to drive at the same speed as the other traffic on the road. It's physically impossible. It can be psychologically frustrating because you see all the cars around you moving at X mph but your self-imposed constraints mean you can only make way at (X minus Y) mph. But them's the breaks, no pun intended
    - Barbing 8mo ago
      >It can be psychologically frustrating True, though- I like being a traffic hacker--come on in, plenty of room!
      - CGMthrowaway 8mo ago
        Weaving into the little spaces is my version of traffic hacking. I estimate every time I can do that, I shave 1-2 seconds off of my commute.
ehnto 8mo ago
I understand perfectly, 20 years driving, I think people just don't like that the safe answer is to be slow. You will not fix others behaviour, so your options are be slow and generous, get out of the chaotic lanes (unless that's all of them), or join them and be aggressive, claim space, be stressed and annoyed your whole trip. There is no solution to traffic here sorry, this is more about managing your own frustration and expectations when faced with people at their worst, in the worst form of transport. The total, confirmed, 100% effective solution is to never commute by highway during peak hours, but few get that option.
- apparent 8mo ago
  It is more dangerous to be slow and have people constantly merging in front of you, rather than be slightly faster and not have all the merging. Accidents happen when vehicles are going different speeds, all things equal.
  - kqr 8mo ago
    That seems like a surprising enough statement to be backed up by data. What is your source? Everything I've read points toward larger margins of safety (longer distances, slower speeds) being safer. See e.g. https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/252480/252480.pdf https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/252480...
    - apparent 8mo ago
      Obviously it is safer to have longer follow distances, all things equal. But you don't accomplish that if you leave a long follow distance that is cut off a few seconds later by another car trying to get ahead. You end up with a constant stream of cars cutting your follow distance to less than what it would have been if you had just stayed slightly closer to the car in front of you. We don't live in an ideal world, and having a bunch of cars merging in front of you definitely makes you less safe than having a static situation. I try to make sure I can see through/around the car in front of me, so that I have advance notice of what's happening down the road.
  - 8mo ago
pphysch 8mo ago
> 20 people in a row will take advantage of your buffer to slow you down again and again and again, which makes you get to your destination later... 30 seconds later, so what?
kortilla 8mo ago
20 people in a row is like 200 meters. Absolutely negligible to your travel time.
mistercheph 8mo ago
60 (20*3) car lengths at 20 mph is 30 seconds
direwolf20 8mo ago
You mean 20 people who were trying to merge finally get to merge because someone came past who wasn't a massive asshole?
- lazide 8mo ago
  That person then gets screwed. Screwed person: WTF? People doing the screwing: ‘oh thank god’ The really irritating part - society saying ‘oh, that’s not happening you should continue to be screwed’
  - bluGill 8mo ago
    Nobody is getting screwed. I've been the person making the gap many many times. You just ignore them, it isn't hard - they are way up there and I'm way back here, plenty of space. I just keep on with my business of safely driving. Sure I often wish I could go the speed limit - but in reality I'm going almost as fast as they are so it isn't like a few feet lost costs me anything. Odds are I'll be stopped at a red light and lose a lot more time once I get off the highway. Besides, there are only a few people who ever merge in front of me (and then those who don't merge block their lane so nobody else can get in).
    - lazide 8mo ago
      In high traffic you’re definitely being screwed - both by the continuing lack of a proper safety gap, and by not being able to go a normal speed. Which does add up in many of these situations. But I guess we should just all self gaslight to feel better about it?
      - bluGill 8mo ago
        In heavy traffic nobody is going "normal speed". I'm not going significantly slower than anyone else.
        lazide 8mo ago
Spooky23 8mo ago
You’re the problem because of the way you are thinking. You don’t own the asphalt in front of you. You’re angry because in your mind you do, and you feel righteous about it. That’s why you are casting a moral judgement about them. The most efficient throughput of the road system is not for people to “politely” queue up for 5 miles. People should be utilizing the rod and merging in an orderly manner. By adopting some arbitrary self imposed practice that is leading to 20 drivers cutting in front of you, are the one creating an unsafe situation.
- maerF0x0 8mo ago
  > You don’t own the asphalt in front of you. Correct, but you _need_ the asphalt in front of you for both safe driving and also to avoid cascading hard braking events. I also don't own the asphalt under me or behind me too, so it's kinda a silly statement tbh. This youtube talks about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE
  - Spooky23 8mo ago
    You do, but if you leave so much that 20 cars are pulling in front of you, you’ve either driving too slow or misjudged and left unnecessary space. At 15-20 mph traffic speeds, you need 8-20 feet. Ideally, cars in a multiple lane to one lane exit scenario should be zipper merging when congestion reduces speeds. Engineers model this behavior and try to design roads to encourage it. If you do that and get angry when people change lanes in front of you, you have consciously or subconsciously decided you own that 20 foot gap. That reaction impairs judgement and causes accidents.
drewgross 8mo ago
If 20 people take advantage of your buffer, then you are delayed by a distance of 20 vehicle-lengths + 20 follow-distances. This is about 1000 meters, a distance which you can travel in about 45 seconds. So the net effect of all 20 people merging in front of you is less than a minute delay on your trip. Unless there is an almost constant stream of people merging in front of you, this isn't adding up to more than a percentage point of two of your whole trip.

spike021 8mo ago

you missed the fact that most people either aren't signaling or do it right as they're already cutting in. that's hardly safe when it's already tight with a safety buffer as it is. provided they use a signal as required by law and taught in the drivers handbook, they'd likely be let into the new lane without any judgement.

lordloki 8mo ago

-Slow down a bit to create another buffer. Now you've just created a shockwave traffic jam.

sfn42 8mo ago
No. That happens when people drive too close to each other and brake. Not when you let off the gas slightly to maintain a gap which prevents this exact thing. The entire reason this happens is because 98% of people are morons who drive up the next guy's ass. If everyone kept a proper distance it wouldn't happen at all.
alistairSH 8mo ago
No, the person who wedged themselves into an unsafe/too-short opening created the shockwave traffic jam. But, yeah, that's the end result.

adolph 8mo ago

>> It's frustrating because . . . > Slow down a bit to create another buffer > I think if you reflect a bit you'll find The parent post does return to the psycho-emotional layer of the problem but on the whole the exchange brings to mind the "two movies, one screen" model of perennial problems. In many of the comments here some people emphasize the problem in terms of physics and some see the problem in terms of psychology (both have overlap and are valid). A third perspective may be "game theory." I think the Prisoner's Dilemma [0] could explain some aspects of the physical/mental problem. In the set below, Driver A's strategy isn't dependent on a singular predictable Driver B but all drivers that may perform the role of Driver B during the course of a commute. Agent Cooperate Defect Driver A leaves space doesn't Driver B^n merge stay Leaving aside all times in which a Driver B must merge, such as lane ending zippers or merging to approach an exit lane, Driver B merges because there is some advantage to being in the lane of Driver A. If Driver A maintains space they will not just lose to one Driver B but to all Driver Bs. I conjecture that this is a collective action problem and that above a certain traffic saturation point there must be a social taboo against changing lanes. This is not to claim that individual perspective shifting is not important. I am reminded of Foster Wallace's Kenyon address "This is Water," [1] quoted below. However, the task of changing individual perspectives is vastly higher energy than the creation of a social taboo, which is why purity codes and other social inhibitors are so prevalent. If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn’t have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. [...] The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. [...] [Maybe] the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma 1. https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/