I thought about this situation and concluded that merging late is the right thing to do; however, many drivers also do this 'get ahead' behavior in areas where

I thought about this situation and concluded that merging late is the right thing to do; however, many drivers also do this 'get ahead' behavior in areas where it is not advantageous to all. What I see, is that the best way to ensure even distribution of the merging cars is by merging late in a one for one fashion. Otherwise, you get more merging cars than those originally in the lane. This really only applies when traffic is heavy enough that space is limited.