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The only activity that truly grates me is when people on a highway on-ramp go from a complete stop to entering the highway at 15 MPH after waiting to the last second between the car ahead of mine and me. Then it takes ten seconds for them to get up to highway speed and I'm locked in the lane due to normal flow in the next lane over.

That's either poor timing or idiocy; I give them the benefit of the doubt that they thought their 4-banger would be up to the task of merging from a full stop.

In your girlfriend's case, it sounds like she was dealing with a definite retard.

Peopl in St. Cloud are all methheads anyway.

(Glad your GF is ok. Bad drivers - and he sounded like a real gem - suck.)

mrreet2001 wrote:

If I am behind some one driving very slow on an on ramp ... I will stop towards the top of the ramp and wait for them to clear (assuming no-one is behind me, if there is I will go)... otherwise it makes a dangerous situation.

This. If I'm on an on ramp, especially if it has a curve, and the person infront of me is at the APEX and is only going 40 km/h, I'll drop down to second and roll while distance builds and the other person barely merges.

The other cars behind me may be annoyed for a short while, but they thank me when some distance opens up and I'm able to rapidly get up to a proper merging speed instead of plodding along at 50 while other cars are going 100.

Gurlugon wrote:

The only activity that truly grates me is when people on a highway on-ramp go from a complete stop to entering the highway at 15 MPH after waiting to the last second between the car ahead of mine and me. Then it takes ten seconds for them to get up to highway speed and I'm locked in the lane due to normal flow in the next lane over.

That's either poor timing or idiocy; I give them the benefit of the doubt that they thought their 4-banger would be up to the task of merging from a full stop.

.

Then there is the other onramp idiot.

A person on a 3 lane highway that decides to pass on the rightmost  lane- when there is an on-ramp and someone trying to get on (and doing so at a completely resonable speed).

I think I have seen that scenario about 4 times this past month.  Most recently the idiot changed INTO the right lane less than 100 feet before the on-ramp merge -the poor soul who was trying to enter the highway had to slam on his breaks or get rear-ended/side-swiped by the a-hole.

I also cannot stand when I am trying to get onto the highway, and the highway is mostly clear, with the exception of some fool  -who sees me on the ramp-- who decides not to change lanes and allow me onto the road. (so either I have to reduce speed and wait for him to pass, or floor it and hope for the best.

user wrote:

iSeamas wrote:

I also cannot stand when I am trying to get onto the highway, and the highway is mostly clear, with the exception of some fool  -who sees me on the ramp-- who decides not to change lanes and allow me onto the road. (so either I have to reduce speed and wait for him to pass, or floor it and hope for the best.

1) Maybe he doesn't see you. Maybe he hasn't checked the lane beside him lately and feels it is safer to stay in his lane than to make a quick change.

The particular on ramp in question, there is no way a driver cannot see a car getting on the ramp -unless they are blind.

user wrote:

2) It's the responsibility of the merging driver to match the speed of the highway traffic. Changing lanes to make it easier for a merging vehicle is a courtesy, not a requirement. You should never expect it.

I understand that compeletely,  the scenario in question, the road is rather clear, and the driver on the parkway has the option of clearing the right lane for oncoming traffic, and have plenty of time to check the left lane.
There is also a good incline at and after the on-ramp, so you really have to nail it if you want to get on.
I understand there is no legal obligation, and I am talking about common courtesy.
I'm just surprised at how clueles some people are.

There are fuzzy situations here. I'm living in Huntsville, AL, and it is clear that whoever laid out some of these intersections was a flaming retard in love with merge lanes - even when it would have been easier, and safer, to have gone with ordinary on/off ramps.

My personal favorites are the mix-master just north of the Redstone Arsenal, and dumb-ass merge lane near the end of Bradford Drive.

The first intersection requires Redstone traffic to interleave with all the people trying to get on i565 from Research Park. There is, maybe, 20-30 yards of actual intersection, so it gets a bit dicey if someone is feeling like an smurf. This worked so well that they repeated it on the Memorial Pwky/i565 interchange - though that one's not so bad because the traffic isn't as heavy.

The second intersection combines an on-ramp with a turn lane. This means that people trying to get onto Bradford get to merge with all the people wanting to turn right onto Discovery. To make things even better, the intersection is wrapped around a curve on a hill - so you can't see people trying to merge right until you are practically on top of them. I've had at least three near misses in two years.

Long story short, sometimes bad intersection design can make an ordinary driver seem like an smurf driver.

Maybe the cops have a photo of the event at that intersection or a nearby intersection.

Susie, I just wanted to let you know how awesome your car's name is.