[BlueDingo]

There are definitely roadways and timing that cause the problem you mentioned but the parent poster is also accurate. So many large scale highway slowdowns and jams are caused by bad drivers not utilizing the left lanes causing the accordion effect in the merging lanes and soon the whole road is at a crawl.

If the drivers staying in the far right lane didn't do that mindlessly (their exit is not next or soon, why are they there?) or if they actually kept space open ahead of them for the cars they can see are about to merge, these problems would largely evaporate.

I'm paraphrasing poorly but, "do things slowly so that they go smoothly. Things done smoothly go fast."