Rant & Rave extra: freeway merging

Nothing sets off out-of-towners like Seattle's famously polite drivers. We stop for pedestrians not yet ready to cross. (That's OK, we'll wait.) We wave other drivers through four-way stops. We sit silently behind a driver who hasn't noticed the light has turned green. Because honking is rude.

So it's no surprise that some of us — and by that we mean other people — assume that it's rude to use the entire onramp to merge onto a freeway. That such a "pushy" maneuver is akin to cutting in at the front of the line. One ranter pretty much said as much, prompting a slew of responses from those who disagree:

Rant "To the person who thinks they know how to merge properly, deriding people for driving to the end of merge lanes, please take a driver's education course. This is actually the proper way to merge — in fact, this is why there is a merge lane.

"Drivers coming into traffic are supposed to drive to the end of the merge lane and then you are to alternate with the flow of traffic. If everyone in the region could simply learn this proper rule of the road driving around here would be a lot less aggravating!"

Rant "The point of the merging lane is to use it until you must merge. This requires the drivers in the remaining lane to be courteous and allow room for one car to merge in front of them without speeding up or slowing down very much. As a former Bay Area, Calif., driver, the inability of Washington drivers to understand this concept is dumbfounding!"

Rant "I see people jump into traffic at the beginning of the merging lane when they are not up to speed and all they accomplish is to be dangerous and slow traffic down. I saw one person come almost to a stop in the entry lane to I-5 north at Mercer and wait for someone on the freeway to slow down to let them in. Those of us behind this car and those behind the car that eventually let him in probably thought they were both insane. I know I did.

"The whole point of merging is to get up to the speed of the traffic on the freeway and merge or blend in, in a kind of shuffle: first one, then the other, etc. This is the way cars merge in most of the civilized world. Seattle drivers are just too polite."

Rant "Remember, the merging arrows that show the coming lane change are painted on the highway at the point of merging. Drivers should approach that point at a speed that matches the car in the next lane — and not appreciably slower (or faster!). During the lane change one should accelerate slightly to maintain correct spacing and make the merge a smooth one. Applying the brakes during this maneuver is a common mistake, which significantly increases the chances of a rear-end collision for the cars behind the offender."

Rant "Those of us who were around when the freeways were built were bombarded with media advice of how to handle entrance ramps. The freeway engineers spent a great deal of time and energy trying to figure out how to design entrance ramps so an orderly flow could be accomplished. They even thought of building 2-foot-high barriers along the entrance ramps so entering vehicles could not merge before the end. But it was deemed too dangerous and was impossible to manage. So they painted that white solid line along the ramp, and you were to merge after the line ended.

"At that time the merging lane traffic would allow a space for the entering vehicle creating a zipper effect. And it worked really well for years. What messes up that zipper is vehicles merging early and causing moving traffic in the merging lane to clog up — no more zipper! Perhaps we need to again publish proper merging principles in our media — just a thought!"

Want to add to the discussion? Visit seattletimes.com/living and click on "Sound Off."