[kbutler]

So you are willing to reduce your safety to stay ahead of the guy in the other lane.

Traffic flows best when drivers allow merges, not when they try to close gaps to prevent merges. Most aggressive mergers will quickly merge out as well.

You may even get some "thank you" waves...

[barrkel]

I'm not talking about closing gaps to prevent merges, but leaving a compromise between continuously merging traffic in front of you - requiring you to slow down continuously but randomly - vs maintaining a steady speed with a predictable buffer.