Friday Question #69
Comments (16) When you’re driving, and your lane ends (because of construction or a natural merge) do you get over into the new lane as soon as possible, or do you ride in your lane until you’re forced to merge?
Of course, this question was brought on by travel. We traveled through Rockford, IL, for Memorial Day weekend, and the highway merged to one lane because of construction.* It seems like in Chicago, when you have to merge, most people wait until they absolutely have to merge. If you don’t, you just end up sitting in the lane watching everyone pass you.
So, that’s is what we normally do – don’t merge until the lane ends.
But in Rockford, when we tried to do this, there was only one car in the lane in front of us, and we didn’t merge for another mile. And instead of driving to the front of the lane, the driver was a big pansy and just stayed next to the same car the whole time, then merged in front of it when the lane finally ended.
In Chicago, people would be honking at this car, but almost everyone was in the merge lane already… which weirded me out. It just made traffic all backed up. I think this is more common in small towns (even though Rockford isn’t that small).
*The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is really great and all, but it is affecting 50% or more of the roads we take with construction. It’s wasting so much time.
Themocracy