Oooo am I going to get a visit from the police?

Ok jam, but if the congestion is 1 mile down the road, rather than 1/2 mile down the road, as long as it does not lead back across another junction, in what way is merging late helping matters? Each constituent part of that congestion still needs to go through the same gap at the queue, so in what way is it more efficient? If two lanes of road are carrying more vehicles than one lane can cope with…. There is going to be a queue forming.

Surprised so many see their queue jumping as the good driving and that anyone who does not let them push in is petty.

I think it’s only the people queuing unnecessarily that view it as queue jumping or pushing in, others see it simply as what you’re supposed to do.*

*more motorway roadworks, not the example you mentioned above.

Lane blocking is for complete ****s who have no idea how/why we should merge in turn.

Lane blocking is for complete ****s people who drive in a slightly different way to me who have no idea how/why we should merge in turn.

Surprised so many see their queue jumping as the good driving and that anyone who does not let them push in is petty.

And that’s the problem, this perception that it’s “queue jumping.” It’s not queue jumping, the queue is two lanes wide until the merge point. You’re just choosing to sit at the back of the longer half.

Say you went to, oh I don’t know, the cinema, and there were two tills open at the concessions stand. One had a queue out the door and the other had six customers waiting. Would you join the shorter queue or would you stand in the doorway with your arms out blocking everyone else from getting past?

There’s merging with traffic, then there’s forcing your way into the other lane at the last minute despite knowing you needed to merge….because you drive an Audi . There, I said it.

Cougar nails it

Even after being a truck driver for twenty years I’m always surprised how normal sane people turn into confrontational nobs when they get behind the wheel,
take the car away and the same people will hold doors open for others, give up seats on buses and trains and are all ‘excuse me’ excuse you’ after you’ in daily life,
Cars do strange things to peoples minds IMO….
And blocking a lane is a nobs trick, just cos someone else is a nob doesn’t mean you have to join in..

If people were able to merge then there wouldn’t be a queue. The queue’s are caused by the stop/start motion of those at the front and gets exaggerated further down the line of traffic. Each time someone leaves it until the last moment to “merge” or push in at the front then the driver in the other lane must give way to them slowing down the traffic behind them even more. This creates the concertina effect which makes traffic jams. If drivers merged together the flow of traffic continues albeit slower without the stop and start caused by those with little peckers that must get to the very front regardless of anyone else.

We need signage:

In fact, says Vanderbilt, traffic would be much better off if cars stayed in both lanes then merged at the very end, one by one, like a zipper. It’s safer (fewer lane changes), it reduces back-ups (often up to 40 percent), and it quenches road rage (still on the rise).

I’m not sure this explains anything at all Convert me old china. Fewer Lange changes? Less road rage?

Don’t get me started on merging…

Yo Cougar, what’s up with Imgur?!

My asshatness aside could I counter her polis claim by suggesting it may also be illegal to just park up and leave your car?

(1)If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding [F1level 3 on the standard scale].

Yes, I would expect a call from the police.

Blocking the outside lane is stupid- there is a reason that the lane is there and it’s not to sit there empty. The Tankersley junction below was on my old commute home every day. I would go up the outside lane (not barrelling along mind) whilst a queue of traffic sat on the left. Because to sit in a queue when you don’t have to is stupid.

It’s stupid for other reasons- look at this map-

The A61 heading south west from the roundabout at the motorway junction is what I am talking about. It goes from two lanes to one. If traffic queues only in the left hand lane, which they do, traffic backs up onto the roundabout. Which blocks the exit off the M1. Which blocks the M1. Which holds up many hundreds of cars that have nothing to do with your petty “why is he pushing in” battle a mile up the road and off the motorway.

Wrightyson, don’t do it, it’s stupid and selfish. Either use both lanes properly or sit at home reading the highway code until you understand it properly.

if the congestion is 1 mile down the road, rather than 1/2 mile down the road, as long as it does not lead back across another junction, in what way is merging late helping matters?

Because then you’ve got a single point where people can merge sensibly and safely 1-2-1-2 rather than a mile of free-for-all chaos where people are carving in and out of lanes whenever they suddenly see a gap slightly larger than their car.

Let me turn that around. in what way is merging late at the correct point not helping matters?

Yeah but Cougar. There is only one till. That is the problem.

If people were able to merge then there wouldn’t be a queue.

Fair enough. Those without the skills to do it can form a queue on the left, those who can do it can drive to the front and merge in turn.

Your analogy is poor as there has to be only one till. I would expect everyone to join at the back of the queue if there was just one till rather than run down the outside and “zip” at the front whilst telling me it was more efficient and i was wrrong and that they were not queue jumping.

FWIW its an interesting views and the link given above that we should do the zipper [ as its quicker] probably has soem truth and merit to it but the perception remains that folk are doing it just to save themselves time rather than help out anyone else and they are queue jumping.

I assume that is why they have barriers to make us queue

Do you form two queues to the barrier point [ the merge point] and zip or just join the end of the line?

I dont think you will find an example out of cars were folk can or do behave like this. We queue. its in our nature

FWIW in egypt the queue for the bus like we do . once it stops and the doors opens it a mad free for all and the queue was pointless,

dullness has ensued – can someone wake me up when the police arrive?

Let me turn that around. in what way is merging late at the correct point not helping matters?

well the friction occurs because people approach a single lane, they can see it is a single lane, they can see a queue of people waiting to go through that single lane, so they join the end of that queue. Caveats about blocking other roads aside. In what other situation would you see a queue of people waiting to go somewhere and then decide that as it is possible to get to the head of the queue by ignoring those who are already waiting, then that is what you’ll do? Unless you are an Italian tourist.

No it’s more like 1 till, but with 2 lines leading up to it. However it’s raining, and the people at the back of the line are all having to queue outside getting wet whilst those sensible enough to realise there’s another queue are inside and dry. There is room however for everybody to be dry.

My second question is why those people trying to merge at the last minute are invariably driving Audis

I think I prefer the Italian way of just getting on with it as fast and often chaotically as possible.

Yes theres a lot of horn beeping but no pretty bitterness to other road users, everyone seems to know exactly how wide their car is and no one fannies around.

That “Merge like a zip!” sign is quality! We need a load of them putting up around the UK.

As others have already noted, the one that really boils my piss is two lanes going to two different places.. Coming out of Newcastle towards the A1 there is a dual carriageway – left lanes goes South (always backed up 1/2 mile+) and the right lane goes North (generally empty and the lane that takes me home). At least a couple of times a week some penis flies up the right and jabs their brakes on a dives left right in front of me. If no-one lets them in I’m sat stationary staring at the back of their stationary car and an empty road ahead. Fair to say I’ve lost my shit a fair few times on that stretch of road…

From a fluid point of view it’s a receiver feeding an orifice. The orifice will only allow a maximum flow rate regardless of receiver size but, a larger receiver will damp variations in upstream flow.

Does that sound like bull?!

Your analogy is poor as there has to be only one till. I would expect everyone to join at the back of the queue if there was just one till rather than run down the outside and “zip” at the front whilst telling me it was more efficient and i was wrrong and that they were not queue jumping.

It’s the same principle, because both lines are still taking part in the queuing process. You’re in the queue regardless of which side you choose to stand on, it’s “two tills” because both of those lines will get served equally at the end, just like the two lanes of the road.

“One till” would be analogous to the other scenario I described, like the road in Colne. With the two lanes going to different places, someone zipping up the right hand lane is not taking part in the queuing process and just diving in at the end. Up until the point they queue jump they were headed somewhere else.

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But ok, a one till analogy, if you insist. More like a barman at a busy bar, then. The barman is serving the patrons in turn as they arrive at the bar. For some reason, maybe it’s an odd room shape or something, the left-hand side of the bar is twelve deep, but over at the right it’s only one or two deep. You arrive. Where do you stand?

Your analogy is poor as there has to be only one till. I would expect everyone to join at the back of the queue if there was just one till rather than run down the outside and “zip” at the front whilst telling me it was more efficient and i was wrrong and that they were not queue jumping.

never been ski-ing then…

Your analogy is poor as there has to be only one till. I would expect everyone to join at the back of the queue if there was just one till rather than run down the outside and “zip” at the front whilst telling me it was more efficient and i was wrrong and that they were not queue jumping.

But you wouldn’t be able to run down the outside if there was an equal size queue on either side, both queues would be the same size. By doing it this way, you’ve not got one long queue blocking access to the popcorn counter.

Your analogy is poor as there has to be only one till. I would expect everyone to join at the back of the queue if there was just one till rather than run down the outside and “zip” at the front whilst telling me it was more efficient and i was wrrong and that they were not queue jumping.

Ok then, the woman running the (single) till takes a person from each queue in turn. There is still one with 50 people, and one with 2. Which do you join?

Regularly see a roundabout near me completely deadlocked due to a queue going right across it, yet there is at least 500m of completely empty lane that 50% of the twerps could go into to clear it. Absolutely braindead. Same thing every day. They even put signs up saying “Use Both Lanes”, but nobody does.

A61 in Chesterfield?

During the roadworks there were regualrly morons blocking the inside lane causing gridlock on the preceeding roundabout despite the huge signs saying “USE BOTH LANES”. They should add “YOU ******* MORON” to the sign and see if that works.

Each time someone leaves it until the last moment to “merge” or push in at the front then the driver in the other lane must give way to them slowing down the traffic behind them even more. This creates the concertina effect which makes traffic jams.

The queue isn’t caused by late mergers, it’s caused by idiots blocking people from merging, tailgating the car in front and generally being a moron and other people braking heaviliy too early trying to merge when they don’t need to. If everyone just merged like a zip then there is no braking and no queue.

Often you will queue for ages as people randomly merge way before the lane disapears and by the time you reach the narrow point you are free flowing again. It’s not where the merge happens that prevents the queue but the orderlyness of everyone doing it at the same point. You could do this at 1 mile before but there wouldn’t be any consistency so it would be chaos (and the tailback is longer than it needs to be)

The upside to the merging seems to be that it uses half the road space.

I haven’t worked out what the downside to it is other than requiring people to be civil. Can anyone explain it?

[*]I did get a visit from the police some years ago after a similar incident. The copper argued that I should have moved to the front of the empty right hand lane. I argued that there is often space up the side of queues to the tills in shops but I wouldn’t consider using that either. After a while he went away.

As a member (pfffnarrr) of the emergency services I can say yes you will get a visit from the police. You will then spend the rst of your days as a shower plaything for Mr. Big in Wormwood Scrubs.
We have far better things to do than speak to drivers about road manners. Donuts don’t dunk themselves y’know.

Ok then, the woman running the (single) till takes a person from each queue in turn. There is still one with 50 people, and one with 2. Which do you join?

But why in that case would you have two queues? A well run cinema would make sure that there was only a single queue and it worked on a first come first served basis in order to avoid aggro. In your analogy, if you did have two queues would it mean that people got served quicker?
I can understand that in certain circumstances the late merge works. Thinking about it, I can see it is fine if the capacity of the single lane is equal to the capacity of the two lanes. However, once the traffic in the two lanes exceeds the single, then a queue forms. This is where the zip idea fails. If one side of the zip stops then it won’t go together correctly. Once the left hand lane has to stop then how does zooming up the right hand lane help efficiency?

The upside to the merging seems to be that it uses half the road space.

I haven’t worked out what the downside to it is other than requiring people to be civil. Can anyone explain it?

Circumstance dependent.

In the image below is a junction where the road goes single lane, turning to a double lane just where the bus is, double lane through the lights, immediate merge back to single lane after the lights. I believe it’s like this to allow people to turn right into Station Flooring without blocking straight through traffic.

Traffic gets busy here, but every morning they’ll be someone who decides that they’re way to important to wait in a queue and who will therefore zoom up the outside, through the lights and then attempt to cut back in having jumped 10 or 20 cars.

Wrong, IMO.

c’mon op, which junction? Where? more evidence needed before judge cougar can determine sentencing!

we’re just generalizing (sp) otherwise

Once the left hand lane has to stop then how does zooming up the right hand lane help efficiency?

If there’s roughly equal numbers of people in each lane there is no zooming going on.

OP – I have done, would have done and will continue to do the same thing as you in that situation.
If everyone did the same, it’d stop happening maybe.

Why do people think there is 2 lanes? It certainly isn’t because the council had so much money and left over Tarmac they needed somewhere to put it.
Use both lanes and merge in turn. The reason it often doesn’t work is because of everyone’s insistance on queuing and not not allowing the merging of traffic to happen efficiently. If everyone joined the back of the shortest queue and then merged in turn it would work. The 2nd lane never ever finishes at a dead stop it always merges into lane 1. The system doesn’t work because of so many peoples insistance that they are morally superior because they are queuing.