Advice to Merge-Impaired Drivers

In message <M5-dnYx6AIkGRsDVnZ2dnUVZ_uLinZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Jack
<jack_hallett@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>When I activate my turn signal in order to change lanes, it is an 
>announcement, not merely of my intention--and it is never a request for 
>permission--but of an event that WILL take place very shortly. When you 
>speed up in an effort to block my lane change, be advised I do not 
>intimidate easily. You will be required to follow through on your 
>pretense and trade paint, at least, if you wish to change my mind. Do I 
>make myself clear?

Here are a couple of phenomena I have noticed on the road which may be
applicable to your situation.

First, have you ever noticed how some people SLOW DOWN when they want
to change lanes? I see this every single day: a car will be cruising
along with the flow of traffic, then suddenly it will begin to slow
for no apparent reason - there's no red light ahead, the vehicle is
not in a turn lane, etc. Then the turn signal will come on, and the
driver will plod along, going slower and slower, until somebody lets
them in. The really amazing part is these people would have no problem
merging if they would simply MAINTAIN SPEED instead of slowing down. 

Anyway, I'm willing to bet that most of these Sloth Mergers don't even
realize they are slowing down. My guess is they are completely focused
on making the lane change and don't have any spare CPU cycles left to
pay attention to their speed. To someone like this, it may very well
APPEAR that the driver in the next lane is speeding up, when in fact
the other driver is maintaining a steady speed and it is THEY who are
slowing down. 

Another big problem with merging stems from the folks who flip on
their indicator and then SIT THERE for several seconds before they
actually start to make their lane change. This leaves other drivers to
wonder: "Is he really going to change lanes, or did he just bump the
signal stalk by accident? And why is that bozo slowing down? Sheesh,
I'd better speed up and get the hell away from this moron before he
does something REALLY stupid..." 

To avoid this problem, don't signal until you're ready to make your
move, and then once you DO signal, make your move quickly and
decisively. If you do that, then even those MFFYs who actually want to
speed up and block you won't have the op****tunity.

Whenever people complain about problems merging or changing lanes,
more often than not it's the fault of the driver doing the
complaining. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't any MFFYs in
econoboxes who really will speed up and try to block your merge.

The bottom line is we don't have enough information to evaluate fault
in the scenario you describe. Maybe the econobox driver is a MFFY, or
maybe you're just an incompetent ****. Unless we can watch you both in
action, we'll never know for sure.
-- 
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starve.