[ethbro]

At least in my city in my commute this morning (~30 minutes), I was forced to hard brake 3 times to avoid having an accident with someone wedging themself in at the end of an exit lane.

I find the problem isn't people merging into your lane in front of you, but doing so badly (ie not leaving a safe amount of space behind their rear bumper and your front bumper).

Semi drivers have this even worse.

[Johnny555]

Are you allowing enough space in front of you for cars to merge in without wedging themselves in front of you?

That's the worst problem I see around here -- cars in the freeway running bumper to bumper, and then a block of 3 or 5 cars also running bumper to bumper trying to force their way in, but none of the cars really leave enough room for a smooth merge, so the cars on the freeway end up hitting the brakes when the merging cars force their way in.

[ethbro]

Yes. I'm guessing because drivers are so used to "forced merging", they don't know what to do when they have an appropriate amount of space.

[tombrossman]

> Semi drivers have this even worse.

There are some advantages to driving a semi in traffic:

- Lots of gears to choose from and massive torque in order to find that perfect 'idle forward' speed.

- Far more comfortable ride then a car, it's not even close.

- Radio communication with trucks ahead, so you know what's happening ahead and which lane to be in long before the cars figure this out.

- Visibility over the top of vehicles in front (except another truck, obviously).

I think the only thing better than a semi for heavy traffic might be a luxury car with adaptive cruise and a little roof-mounted drone-cam that you could launch to check out the view ahead (though this sounds like something Homer Simpson would dream up). Your own little personal traffic copter/R2D2, with a recharging dock on the roof. Someone please tell Elon Musk to make this a priority for new Teslas. It could even check out side streets in cities and find quicker routes.

[ethbro]

I was thinking stop-and-go traffic, which is murder.

Heavy load = longer stop distance = lengthier minimum safe following distance

Minimum safe following distance > 1 car length = motorists darting in front of semis

Rinse and repeat. Assuming a heavy load and ignorant motorists, there's no way to avoid constant unsafe situations. As soon as you create a new safe gap, someone slides in.

So, no. It's terrible. (And I'm not even mentioning the additional gear shifts)

https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Merge+semi