Does anybody know (or care) about how to merge on a freeway

[GTVi]

In my 30+ years of driving, I have learned to "read the traffic" to avoid the issues of cars merging into traffic on freeways....that is the best way to avoid it.
We can do a lot to make people better drivers, but the fact of the matter is everyone is different, and skills vary. There will always be good and bad drivers.

In my 30+ years, I have only been involved in 3 accidents, all of them from people rear ending me while I'm stopped at traffic...the last one was recent, I was 'rear ended' by a chap from Afghanistan, with an international drivers license, and no insurance.

The witnesses spotted him "texting" on the phone moments prior to him hitting me....I was not impressed, I was driving my wife's 5 month old car.

I know the constabulary did their bit to make sure he wouldn't drive again. Its just as well they got to him before I did.

[GTVi]

Like Rome or Paris, startling evidence that good driving does not start in all of Europe. In Freeway conditions most of Europe leads for good driving but only because they have 50 years lead, we didn't see freeways until the 1970's and a lot of people did not drive on them until the 80's. I anticipated that my post would lead to strong rebuttal from some, in fact I would have bet a year's wages on it. Why don't people merge properly, some are s**T scared of driving on freeways, none have been trained to do it properly and a smaller proportion should not be driving. As to Fred's point for teaching, we all have at one stage or another taught people to drive, did anyone admit that they may not be qualified to do that? we do not have a credential but we in general are all prepared to do it. I have seen this debate in many other places and to a man no one points the finger at themselves before criticising others. To prove how good we all are, we are conceited enough to teach someone to drive exactly the same way we do and not by best practise. It is reality and human nature to do so. I know it is a touchy subject, ask yourself why.

I got as far as teaching my kids to stat the car and engage the clutch, after that I said my job is done, off to the driving instructor you go !
I thought I'd give the road rules test a go when the kids were studying, and failed miserably. So much has changed over the years.

[BobL]

. . .In my 30+ years, I have only been involved in 3 accidents, all of them from people rear ending me while I'm stopped at traffic...the last one was recent, I was 'rear ended' by a chap from Afghanistan, with an international drivers license, and no insurance.

My last accident was this time last year was being sideswiped by a large kangaroo.
All 4 panels (both driver side doors) were replaced on that side- $8k for that little bingle
photo1p.jpg

And the one before that was with a driver with an international drivers licence and no insurance who committed fraud by taking out insurance the day after the accident and want me to fake the date of the accident.
The driver was texting while driving in a 40 zone and was driving in the middle of the road I tooted repeatedly and finally he looked up and swerved at the last min - I was basically stopped.
Both cars totalled in this one.

Loss1BRU042a.jpg

The one before that was another kangaroo!

The last one that was was my fault was 1975 - motor bike - gravel road - too fast - didn't make the turn, lost a bit of skin. Didn't do that one again.

[Chief Tiff]

Well since I was 19 I have held a HR license (it was class C then) and got my car license at 17. I am 54 now so that is 37 years driving experience.

That's 37 years of driving cars and trucks in all six states and two territories of Australia as well as New Zealand, Malaysia, Bruneii, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

Yes I would say I am qualified.


Doug

Wow. You have 10 years more than me of driving rigid vehicles but I'll raise you motorcycle and semi. You've taken two driving tests in your 37 years? Motorcycle (two separate examinations required to get UK open license), car, heavy rigid and semi in the UK. Car, motorcycle and Medium Rigid in Aus. Individual licenses held for the UK and three states and one territory of Australia (Vic, NT, WA, QLD). And all driving tests pread out pretty evenly between 1986-2010. Experienced in driving in the UK, New Zealand, US, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Italy, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Greece, Djibouti, Kenya, Egypt, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, the Canary Islands, Majorca, Aruba, Curacao, Trinidad, Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, The United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain. In either a car, a motorcycle, truck or a semi. Or all. LH and RH drive; often the wrong way round ie British semi driving on the RH side of the road throughout most of Europe; European and US cars in Aus, NZ, Gib and HK. Unless you've actually lived in any those countries you mentioned I'll wager your experience consists of a couple of weeks on holiday with a hire car; I've driven THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of miles spread over the countries I've listed above in either a semi, a truck, car or bike, or a combination of all.

All licensed drivers are "qualified", but some of us have more qualifications than others.

Most of us are "experienced", once again; some of us are more experienced than others and over a significantly wider range.


I love your comment; "Not once while I have been sitting in the car has anyone driving in FORWARDS ever hit me." By some remarkable coincidence, I have also never seen someone smash into another car whilst driving forwards either into or out of a parking space. I have seen a few people hit cars reversing into spaces, and many people hit oncoming cars, shopping trolleys and pedestrians reversing OUT of a parking space because they were couldn't see where they were going; usually because someone in a Landcruiser with tinted windows and a lift had parked on their left, facing forwards because they were either too lazy or inept to reverse park and knowing full well that with their elevated driving position they can see OVER the cars parked on either side and can therefore justify to themselves their decision to drive into a space.

Your opinions and views on this matter would appear to based on personal belief with little or no physical supporting evidence; merely heresay And just in case you consider British taught drivers to be at best your equal I recommend you check out BOBL's link that clearly show Australian drivers are more likely to either have an accident, or to kill, or be killed on the roads. Which compared to UK roads are really wide, really flat, generally really straight and don't have any appreciable traffic worth bothering with.

I'm sorry Doug; but you're wrong. Please learn to live with it; counselling can be arranged if necessary to help you cope with the crushing disappointment.

[beefy]

I love your comment; "Not once while I have been sitting in the car has anyone driving in FORWARDS ever hit me." By some remarkable coincidence, I have also never seen someone smash into another car whilst driving forwards either into or out of a parking space. I have seen a few people hit cars reversing into spaces, and many people hit oncoming cars, shopping trolleys and pedestrians reversing OUT of a parking space because they were couldn't see where they were going; usually because someone in a Landcruiser with tinted windows and a lift had parked on their left, facing forwards because they were either too lazy or inept to reverse park and knowing full well that with their elevated driving position they can see OVER the cars parked on either side and can therefore justify to themselves their decision to drive into a space.

Your opinions and views on this matter would appear to based on personal belief with little or no physical supporting evidence; merely heresay And just in case you consider British taught drivers to be at best your equal I recommend you check out BOBL's link that clearly show Australian drivers are more likely to either have an accident, or to kill, or be killed on the roads. Which compared to UK roads are really wide, really flat, generally really straight and don't have any appreciable traffic worth bothering with.

My only personal experiance was an old lady who reversed out of a parking space and straight into the front of our car, then proceeded to drive off like nothing had happened . Our car only had a scratch on the bumper and we felt sorry for her so let her go to find someone else to bump into.

I've got good mechanical aptitude which really helps with manoevering and reversing a vehicle. I've always found reversing into a space far easier and safer than reversing out. With the wing mirrors I can see the space between my car and the one at the side so I have control. Plus I'm coming into the space parallel for the most part of it. In contrast when reversing out I can only guess what the space is from the front corner of my car and the side of the car next to me, and I'm reversing out at an angle, much harder. And if someone comes and parks close to you while you're gone, things just got a lot harder. For those drivers that can reverse proficiently all the facts that I can see point to reversing in / driving out to be the fastest, easiest and safest way of parking. I would actually say that when it comes to lack of consideration, that would be applied moreso to drivers NOT reversing into a space.

I get a feeling that it's just become culture thought that someone should quickly get out of the road and drive forwards into the space, but it's grudgingly accepted that they have to reverse out so what can other drivers do but wait. A few years ago I had one of the great many Melbourne driver experiences. I swing out to the left in preparation to reverse into the car park space, then as I start reversing into the space the car behind me (4WD with enraged lady driver) comences to drive behind me in the open car parking spaces. Well she didn't make it and she actually wanted to start a PHYSICAL fight. I've also had inumerous experiences of drivers behind me getting angry when you slow down to turn left. Maybe I should have took the sharp right hand turn at the 60 or 70 speed limit. A lot of drivers here have a hard time dealing with slowing down or God forbid the dreaded stopping. I think this creates a lot of pressure on many drivers to just drive forward into a car parking space when they may prefer to reverse in.

Regarding the UK thing. I recently talked to a guy from the UK who has his driving instructor license (i.e. UK license). He said something along the lines of UK instructors go through special training to get licensed, whereas here that's not the case. Is that true ?? He's driving trucks here at the moment but says he wants to get into driver instructing here because it's such a doddle. I've done car tests in the UK and Australia, and I've had plenty years experience on both roads. I don't know what the rest of Australia is like but as far as Melbourne goes, give me UK roads anytime, I don't feel so in danger. It was previously mentioned that in Europe they have much more experience there and that's why the driving is better. Very sorry but I absolutely don't buy that as a reason for the better driving. Australia is not in the dark ages. Attitude, proper training, and importantly law enforcement is more the problem. Experience has nothing to do with dumping what has been taught, it has nothing to do with anger, or aggressivenes, general wreckless driving, etc, etc. That comes from attitude, and it's what I see everyday on Melbourne roads. In the UK I found drivers EXPECT other drivers to drive properly and give order to driving (they go apeshit when someone is blocking an overtaking lane for instance). Anger seemed to be targeted at drivers doing the wrong thing. In Melbourne I find the opposite, anger is more common from bad attitude, aggressive drivers and is often targeted at the good drivers doing the right thing. That's not an experience problem it's an attitude problem.

[doug3030]

Experienced in driving in the UK, New Zealand, US, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Italy, Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Greece, Djibouti, Kenya, Egypt, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, the Canary Islands, Majorca, Aruba, Curacao, Trinidad, Singapore, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, The United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain. In either a car, a motorcycle, truck or a semi. Or all. LH and RH drive; often the wrong way round ie British semi driving on the RH side of the road throughout most of Europe; European and US cars in Aus, NZ, Gib and HK.

Mate no wonder you are so confused, All those years of experience but all so broken up on such vastly different things. What a pity.

Unless you've actually lived in any those countries you mentioned I'll wager your experience consists of a couple of weeks on holiday with a hire car; I've driven THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of miles spread over the countries I've listed above in either a semi, a truck, car or bike, or a combination of all.

Well lets see, two years in Indonesia, two and a half years in Malaysia, six months in Bruneii and 9 months in PNG; passed the tests for the licenses in all of these countries in their national languages and drove there incident-free for the duration of my stay.

Your opinions and views on this matter would appear to based on personal belief with little or no physical supporting evidence; merely heresay.

So do yours, mate. By the way the correct spelling is "hearsay".

Cheers

Doug

[Big Shed]

Gentlemen, could we please not let this thread degenerate in to personal attacks?

Let's play the ball and not the man.

[BobL]

Driving trucks etc has everything to do with merging - they have to do it right otherwise carnage ensues and if you are on a bike then you generally lose big time. I've generally found truckies in most places in the world are much better at merging than car drivers and those many wayward car drivers could learn a lot from watching them.

How about the eeddjets that overtake using the white marked areas and/or safety lanes on freeways?
My favourite was the Transam that overtook us during a traffic jam on an LA freeway.
We were bumper to bumper stationary on the outside lane.
The freeway had a useless half car width safety lane and concrete barrier that curved upwards smoothly to a height of about 2m.
The Transam had two wheels in the half safety lane and two wheels up on the barrier and a bunch of arms hanging out the windows sporting various 1 and 2 finger waves.
We had to laugh - it looked like it was straight out of movie.

[GTVi]

Having worked in high population areas, Jakata and Manila mainly, although never dared to drive in these cities, however I studied the traffic and they use the "water flow" principle. Those who have not ventured outside of Australia would not understand it until your in it. In that time I never witnessed a car accident amongst what appears to be total chaos. But their method of merging system works well. "If there is a gap, then its quickly occupied, without any road rage".

[AlexS]

Having worked in high population areas, Jakata and Manila mainly, although never dared to drive in these cities, however I studied the traffic and they use the "water flow" principle. Those who have not ventured outside of Australia would not understand it until your in it. In that time I never witnessed a car accident amongst what appears to be total chaos. But their method of merging system works well. "If there is a gap, then its quickly occupied, without any road rage".

I worked with a Sri Lankan lady who was an excellent driver. She told me that when she visits home, it takes her about 3 days to revert to driving Sri Lankan style, and the same to revert to driving Australian style when she returns. She also informed me that the seemingly pointless beeping and light flashing are actually systematic signals that convey meaning to the local drivers.

[BobL]

I worked with a Sri Lankan lady who was an excellent driver. She told me that when she visits home, it takes her about 3 days to revert to driving Sri Lankan style, and the same to revert to driving Australian style when she returns.

I reckon that is a problem whenever sides of the road are changed and drivers think - I know this, I don't need to think about it. After spending a couple of years in the US and coming back to Oz the next morning I took off down the road and had gone 100 m before I realised I was on the wrong side.

The reverse happened to me in Europe. I arrived in Venice and immediately drove a hire car to a resort in Bavaria. Then the car sat in the car park for a week. I then took off down a quiet country backroad at 5am in the morning heading for Geneva- it was summer so daylight but it was foggy - I saw a set of headlights coming straight towards me - then I realised I was on the wrong side of the road and managed to get to the other side before a big semi swept past.

[Bushmiller]

Interesting thread started by (hold on I'll just have to look back) Beefy and now morphing into general discussion on motoring behaviour and drving skill in general. I would like to earn some (much needed) goodie points and bring it back on track (rolleyes, daren't use the smilies as the computer freezes).

I believe there are two scenarios with merging. One is on the rural motorways and the other on urban motroways. In general, match speed, indicate and move onto the freeway with care. In other words check that there is actually somewhere to go and if not you may have to back off. The driver already on the motorway also has some obligation (although arguably not by law) to allow a vehicle travelling at a similar speed to join the motorway. If at all possible the driver on the motorway should move across to the next lane to the right (normally the middle lane) to allow easy entry for the merging vehicle.

Some of this is less easy during congestion, particularly on the urban sections. However, if each person allows one vehicle to merge in front of them this too can be acceptable. For me it is just down to courtesy.

If I may get off track (more rolleyes) for a moment my personal hobby horse is slow drivers hogging the middle and/or outside lanes when nearside lanes are clear. This also encourages the crime (in my view) of passing on the inside. I become particularly incensed by drivers passing me on the inside at speeds in excess of the speed limit as I am attempting to move into the slow lane at 100kph or 110kph as allowed.

Could I also ask a question as to why the authorities keep maintaining that speed kills and this is why the speed limits are being reduced? I don't think this is the case and in fact I checked BobL's statistics. Here are some to show comparable counties. Those with higher speed limits tend to have lower fatalities.

I agree that in the UK where their open road speed limit is 70mph the police will not book you under 85mph so they are travelling significantly faster. In continental Europe motorway discipline tends towards exemplary and in complete contrast to their urban driving where Rafferty's rules prevail. My last circumnavigation of the roundabout at the top of the Champs Elysees about forty years ago still stands in my mind as one of the most frightening driving experiences of my life and I don't suppose the situation has changed very much.

Without claiming to be a better driver than anybody else my credentials are (while touching wood, smiley face inserted here) that my last driving infringement was recorded in 1981 and I have had one other before that which should also be taken into consideration.

Regards
Paul

Country	Deaths per 100,000people	deaths per 100,00 vehicles	deaths per billion vehicle/kms	total fatalities
Australia	6.1	8	5.8	1,281
UK	2.75	5.1	3.6	1,754
USA	10.4	15	8.5	33,808
Germany	4.4	6.9	7.2	3,600
France	6.4	9.57		3,645

[beefy]

I believe there are two scenarios with merging. One is on the rural motorways and the other on urban motroways. In general, match speed, indicate and move onto the freeway with care. In other words check that there is actually somewhere to go and if not you may have to back off. The driver already on the motorway also has some obligation (although arguably not by law) to allow a vehicle travelling at a similar speed to join the motorway. If at all possible the driver on the motorway should move across to the next lane to the right (normally the middle lane) to allow easy entry for the merging vehicle.

Some of this is less easy during congestion, particularly on the urban sections. However, if each person allows one vehicle to merge in front of them this too can be acceptable. For me it is just down to courtesy.

Bushmiller,

I like your attitude and way of thinking. I'm in complete agreement with one small exception.

I've often moved over to the right hand lane to help out a merging vehicle. But often my reward for that is I end up stuck in that lane for a while. If I was in my little truck I couldn't go fast enough so I become a lane hogger in the faster lane, likewise in my car when doing heavy towing. Or if I am travelling at 100, the vehicle I let out is now at my left side and in order not to break the speed limit I have to slow down in the faster lane in order to try and find a gap behind him and get back into the left lane. It seems more times than not drivers have some reasoning in their head that they should merge at 80 even though their vehicles can get to 100 in a heartbeat. I know this because most times once they have "merged" onto the freeway they immediately floor it to 100. So they basically made the freeway traffic slow down by 20k just so they can merge. This action is what often causes me to get stuck in the right lane. I move over to the right because I'm going way faster than the merging vehicle but I can see we are on a collision coarse. The merging driver comes onto the freeway at 80, immediately speeds up to 100 and is now at my left. They don't wait to see if the vehicle which just let them out wants to come back to the left hand lane. All of this because the merging driver made no attempt to merge properly, AS THEY WERE TAUGHT.

[BobL]

Could I also ask a question as to why the authorities keep maintaining that speed kills and this is why the speed limits are being reduced? I don't think this is the case and in fact I checked BobL's statistics. Here are some to show comparable counties. Those with higher speed limits tend to have lower fatalities.

Country	Deaths per 100,000people	deaths per 100,00 vehicles	deaths per billion vehicle/kms	total fatalities
Australia	6.1	8	5.8	1,281
UK	2.75	5.1	3.6	1,754
USA	10.4	15	8.5	33,808
Germany	4.4	6.9	7.2	3,600
France	6.4	9.57		3,645

The speed comparator can be a bit misleading. Cars on freeways in these countries may be travelling at what we consider amazing speeds but for every car on a freeway there is at least a car stationary in choked roads in cities, towns and village. OK maybe not standing still but they move at much lower average speeds than in our cities. The average speed of traffic in all of London is only 39 kph. Sydney has an average of 30 kph during the rush hours, Melbourne is apparently worse - but this is only during the rush hours. The risk of death at low speeds is equally lower than the increase at higher speed,s so if a sizeable fraction of a countries car fleet is crawling there will be less lives lost.

The deaths per 100,000 people and deaths per 100,00 vehicles are not very good comparators - you can probably work out why for yourself.

The one to look at is deaths per km and here we fare much better except for the UK (and Sweden and Norway) where they have better roads and no outback and in Scandanavia they have MUCH tougher DD laws.

The countries we should compare ourselves with are countries like Canada and the US because of the size of the country and similar suburban sprawled cities and DD laws.
Here we come out much better almost certainly because we have more space between cars.

When a lot of these factors are put into the mix it turns out we're not as different as we think.

And for all you lay back Lennies and dawdlers who insist on travelling too slowly, look up this Solomon curve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Chris Parks]

I have a statistic for you all. Very few accidents happen at over 160kph so we should all drive at that.