How NOT to Merge with Traffic.

You’re on a two-lane-on-ramp about to merge with freeway traffic. You have been on this ramp numerous times before, though, and know that at the end of the ramp, only the left lane will actually merge with the freeway. Invariably, though, a swarm of social miscreants will break out of the long left lane of traffic, into the right lane, to weasel their way back into the left lane much further down the road.

Now, I see this all too often, and honestly, it’s not the end of the world. Some people are just massively impatient, and hey, we’re never going to see them again, right? We’re talking about public roads, and there you see a lot of things that are annoying that you can do nothing about, because you’re in public.

Then there’s work, which is not a public place. In fact, at my workplace, you have to show a sophisticated ID to get in, which indicates that the government has given you the “okay” to enter the facility. At the entrance to my workplace, there are 3 lanes of traffic inbound in the morning: the left lane only turns left to reach the west side of the plant, and the middle and right lanes which go into the main plant entrance.

So the middle and right lanes are backed up a quarter mile or so, and you’re impatient. You decide to break out of the middle lane, into the left lane, and actually have the audacity to drive up to the front of the line to merge with the middle lane. Predictably, now you’re sitting in the left lane, pissing me off since I have to turn left, and pissing off everyone in the middle lane because they know you WORK HERE, and you’re just an impatient snob who wasn’t willing to wait in line like everyone else; there’s no “oops, I didn’t know” card that you can play on a public road. Those in the middle lane don’t want to let you in, and I wouldn’t want to let you in, and now you’ve successfully broadcasted your improper and massively rude driving habits to hundreds of coworkers. Congratulations! Your coworkers just lost respect for you. But you’re going to beat them into the office, so you…um…win?

And that, my friends, is how NOT to merge with traffic.