Most people Merge terrible on the exit ramp... TAKE IT TO LAST DANG FOOT OF IT

two simple choices they either can get in front my truck or back the truck off chance there room and not in the congested area I will try to get over. They should be doing the speed limit by the time they see the ramp meets the highway unless traffic is congested. It's not a hard concept.

 

I just LOVE when I see the occasional idiot flying down the ramp at highway speed into heavy traffic, to come to a complete stop. Everyone else is going 70 mph, and these idiots expect everyone to slow or stop, while the get up to speed, so there they sit, with the left blinker on, until Dudley Do-right decides to slam on the brakes and let Numbnutz in.

That's why we have traffic in Harrisburg.....

 

Before a few of you supertruckers throw the first stone, a lot of drivers in trucks can't merge with traffic and many idiots will cut off others so to avoid dealing with people coming off the on ramps.

This happened to me this morning, not a car around except me and a pickup behind me, coming back from my yard in indiana and an idiot truck driver sitting in the right lane. NOW he knows we are there and we are going a good clip nearing his ****** end, but when he sees someone on the on ramp (which is a eighth of a mile long by the way), he swerves in to my lane and almost causes an accident.

The one thing I stress is to my drivers is to see where the on ramp actually ends, not assume that it is short.

 

The thing that bothers me the most is the attitude of most drivers, as soon as they get behind the wheel they become Ario Mandretti, Indy500 style. They race down the road and God forbid someone tries to get in front of them or move over into "their" lane. If everyone just laid back and showed some common courtesy to their fellow man, traffic would flow much smoother, but no, they'd rather kill themselves or someone else just to keep anyone from being in front of them, especially a big truck. I'll get off my soapbox now. Good weekend to everyone.

 

Problem is the media never shows how mangled up the bodies end up when they’re in an accident. These folks think they die in one piece. I’m from an old school Hispanic family and when I was a kid the Spanish news always showed the gored up body in accidents or murder. So if you noticed the Hispanics back then had a lot of respect since they knew they can be easily tore into pieces.

 

Can the vehicle accelerate or decelerate faster? (Decelerate).

The reason for the long ramps are to accelerate. To ABOVE posted limit. (There’s NO other reason to have built them).

With no one ahead of you on the ramp, or way out ahead, start the run. (Means if necessary you stop or nearly-so at ramp entrance to get others out if the way. Those behind you have no reason to expect you to make room for them until they are underway. A ramp IS NOT a city street, frontage road, etc. That others have to slow or stop behind you IS EXPECTED).

On achieving high speed use the brakes to finesse it in for the merge if necessary. Best possible spacing.

Can’t hit the lane 400’ feet ahead of a big truck? Back down and slide in behind.

The morons who come down the ramp in a closely spaced line do so illegally. Cutting off right lane ROW. (Stupid is as stupid does). Used to be the rate of rear impact collisions was high. Now ALL the stupids (include yourself) just drive on down together.

(The stupids also believe that exiting the highway gives them ROW. That’s ONLY at the point of meeting. Exit ramps are speed-governed. Not entrance ramps. If you’re on the road they’re entering, the yield is ONLY if you meet simultaneously).

And when as a country you’ve imported millions of (legally) retarded and near-retarded parasites without the visuo-spatial skills to figure time & distance, it’s evidence that civilization won’t survive as we designed. They can’t “figure out” how to merge until alongside another. They can’t drive. (Above 45-mph is way past their ability).

Those who designed the Interstates were counting on the ability of Western men (not women or droolers) to negotiate things.

Cars weren’t high powered. Had to get thru the gears. Needed acceleration space. (Same with decel phase on exit ramp). The ramp is a special case.

As the vehicles of yesteryear were harder to control under high rates of acceleration or braking, the ramps were a way of isolating those actions from the actions of others. Allowed you to focus on the road being entered.

You might want to travel 60-mph but you still accelerated up to 70 to get on The Big Road. Speed was adjusted once merged.

You get onto the highway and then accelerate? Makes you one of the stupids. Deserves a moving violation.

The courtesy of moving out of the right lane was for those dead-slow big trucks. Everyone else hit the lane at top speed. And it was/is ONLY a courtesy.

The two gasoline crises of 1973 and 1979 found people reluctant to do things properly. Save gas, etc. Then the Enemy’s stealth war (use your generosity against you) forced women into the workplace after we were ethnically-cleansed from the cities we’d built once the animals were uncaged. Had to move out of the city and commute by car versus walk or ride public transit. Increased every cost of family life.

(My father and grandfather — executives — walked or took the streetcar home for lunch everyday. Major cities. Single family homes. Owned a car, but didn’t need it most of the time).

The ramps are to get to top speed, OR, to decelerate to UNDER the side road limit. In both cases a vehicle — especially a combined rig — only has positive control when under mild acceleration or greater.

One EXITS the ramp to the side road or highway at the IDEAL speed.

This is the state to achieve: mild positive acceleration RELATIVE TO other traffic on the road being entered. This is the ONLY way to make that merge occur in a MINIMUM of time & distance while in full control.

The addition of a ramp extension on the highway itself is recent. Well after Interstate design. By circa 1980-85 the recognition that a LONG extension worked well has now seen these become common.

The next step was a literal third road inserted between the Interstate and local roads. Get entering and exiting traffic isolated for a half mile or mile.

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I think the approach changes a bit depending on how heavy you are. If you are empty, merge onto the freeway as soon as you are traveling about 45 MPH (if possible as some on-ramps are very short). If you are fully loaded (80k), then stay on the acceleration lane (if any) until you are traveling about 45 MPH (again, if possible). You also don’t want to merge last second as some drivers are not always aware that your lane is coming to an end.

 

It's funny you say that, I can pretty much recall every fatal I've seen, and I've seen quite a few, they even popup in my dreams occasionally. People stop and stretch their necks to see and then wish they hadn't. I gave up looking a long time ago, now I just want to get past them. When the cops all have rubber gloves on and no one is moving fast, or just standing around, you know it's a bad one.

 

It's entirely situational. Sometimes I have to wake a driver up by squeezing the lane. Sometimes I have to wait until the end of the ramp due to traffic. Sometimes I can go early. There are no hard and fast rules. Do whatever suits the situation.

 

say what..... the ramp is there to get up to the the same speed as traffic and move over into traffic as soon as you safely can, waiting till the end of the ramp and then hitting the breaks if you cant get over is not the way to do it.