Safe Speed Forums

A classic situation with traffic backed up onto the end of a Dual Carriageway.
Traffic tends to queue up Lane 1 and leave Lane 2 clear. To 'belt' down Lane 2 and 'find' an opening seems like pushing-in to me but maybe it's making the best use of available road space. I'm not sure. What do you think & what do you do?

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

Oh ho! The old "zip-merging" debate!!

Can't vote on this one as none of the options reflect my actions.

I do wait in lane 1 "passively" as I do feel as if I'm queue-jumping if I use L2. But I do leave adequate space in front of me to allow L2 users to nip in if needs be.

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Simon

continue down L2 indicating to join L1 from about 200m from merge point

Utilise all available road capacity, otherwise I am making those behind me wait for longer than necessary.

I don't like it when drivers leave unnecessarily large gaps in front; this behaviour needlessly exaggerates the queue behind them when they eventually pull away.

If I see a hole ahead, I fill it (applying the zip merge).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I dont understand the logic of this - the way I see it, is that if 100 cars have to pass through a restriction, then car 100 will pass through at the same time whether there are one lane or two leading up to the restriction.
It's like water trickling out of a hole in a bucket!

In fact, if the merge becomes forced, instead of at the earliest convenient point, it might require lane one to HALT to allow lane two to merge, thus delaying things slightly.
It is possible of course that car 102 passes 100 in lane one, then forces it's way in front, in which case car 100 WOULD take longer to pass by, because it merged into the flowing lane early

The most obvious aid to getting as much traffic through as quickly as possible, is to close up close as is safe, and get through the pinch point with as little delay as possible. Letting cars merge right in front of the restriction just serves to cause slow/start driving, which causes delay.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

It depends on the other factors on the road. It brings to mind a particular stretch passing round the south of Nottingham for me. There are lights right before the merge, so everyone merging into lane one early would just mean more people held up at the lights. Further back there is a left turning, if everyone gets into lane one then people who want to turn off there have to wait longer.

Yeah, but are we going to fill the whole bucket or just the left hand side?

If we were going to just fill the left hand side we'd have to find some silly water that thought the right hand side of the bucket was for 'queue jumpers'.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I must admit what really boils my bunny are drivers who actively move into L2 to block traffic looking to merge further down the queue, as that causes 2 lanes of unnecessarily congested traffic.

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Simon

The difference is that water is fluid.
Try making a hole just a bit bigger than a ball bearing, then fill the bucket with ball bearings - you might lose one or two, then it clogs up!

If you can line up the ball bearings in a tube, they would run out the hole in no time!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

How far, exactly, before the start of the tube should they be lined up?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Quite! If we were able to take this one road in isolation, just a long, straight road with no other features then the simplified analogy would be very apt, I see where you're coming from Ernest.

The thing is, no road is in isolation, there are traffic lights and junctions, roundabouts and slip-roads, and traffic backing up can affect people who's intentions don't even take them to where the head of the queue is.

I think its pretty safe to generalise with 'Wherever there is congestion, and not all available road capacity is being used, there is the potential for people to be held up unneccesarily'. We can't know whether, behind us, that is occurring or not, but by using all available road capacity we can minimise the chances.

I can't answer this one. As with so many things, it depends on the situation.

If the traffic is comparatively light, I tend to filter in early to lane 1 to ensure laminar flow at the intersection with minimal bunching. Provided there is light at the end of the tunnel, for the most part this is easiest.

If traffic is heavy, or if others are in L2 already, I will happily adopt L2 with a view to merginmg at or close to the "tube" entrance, but be happy to defer to anyone in L1 who has a point to prove.

I believe the dilemma is cause by the mentality of most to start forming a queue in L1 only.
If this country actively encouraged (or even instructed) zip merging, any adverse feelings towards others would disappear and we would make the best use of available road space

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

L2 right to the end, then very un-pushy about merging.

I have seen "use both lanes and merge at pinch point when busy" signs occasionally, but not recently.

As I type, there are 9 people who have contributed to this thread (OK some didn’t cast their vote), none of which have advocated the ‘Join L1 but attempt to 'block' L2’ option.
So far 13 votes have been cast, surprisingly 3 of which are the ‘Join L1 but attempt to 'block' L2’ option.



I see an obvious correlation in that the people who ‘block’ are too embarrassed to discuss it.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

So have I - and at motorway road works. How sensible is that? No wonder we hardly ever see it...

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

I'm a one, but I want to be a five I don't like upsetting other road users and I know this does.

to my mind it makes sense to use as much of road as possible and for the merging lanes to do so without fuss. However in this country you can count on all those on the inside lane to block entry for those merging.

I think most queues are not as such related to the physics of getting x number of cars through one section of road at a certain speed, more about our attitude with those that "push in", bad observation and ignorance.

If we all slowed gently on approach to a merge and opened up sufficient gap in front of us to allow another car, and merged in turn at the approach I don't think there's any need to come to a complete halt, but we frequently do.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

So far we have 7 people happily using L2 (number 5s) and 3 people (number 3s) who wish to block them.

This isn't good.

Would any of those of you who went for the third option care to explain why you would do that?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety