Merging into single lane traffic

Mervyn Skidmore

Hi. Today I was driving along and took a left turn into a slip way to merge to the right with another single lane of traffic. When I entered the merging section, I put on my indicators to merge right, checked my mirrors and there was a car in the single lane approx 50-100m behind me. The car slightly sped up and I feel was trying to block me from merging for some strange reason. I decided to merge ahead of her and then she went ballistic on the horn etc. Am I wrong? I would have had to jam on the breaks at the end of the slipway as I was running out of road. Do I have any priority seeing as I was ahead of her at all times? It would have just been easier if she had stayed course and let me merge without trying to block me.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

f*ck them , now forget about it .

Mervyn Skidmore

DaDumTish wrote: »

f*ck them , now forget about it .

Totally, just wondering for my own sake what the legal thing to do is. Should we yield to those merging ahead of us? I do as a courtesy anyway.

Spook_ie

Would depend primarily on the speed people are merging at ( not wanting to get into speed limits etc. ) but if you are ahead and travelling at say 60kph and you merge in front of a vehicle doing 80Kph then IMO depending on the distance in front would be a deciding factor. However, having said that if she sped up and caused the problem then yeah **** her

Mervyn Skidmore

Spook_ie wrote: »

Would depend primarily on the speed people are merging at ( not wanting to get into speed limits etc. ) but if you are ahead and travelling at say 60kph and you merge in front of a vehicle doing 80Kph then IMO depending on the distance in front would be a deciding factor. However, having said that if she sped up and caused the problem then yeah **** her

This all happened in a 50kph zone.

Spook_ie

Mervyn Skidmore wrote: »

This all happened in a 50kph zone.

Just said not wanting to get into speed limits, because a lot of people ignore them. Even if she was speeding depending on distances would be foolhardy to merge in front.

Spook_ie

where was this anyway, sometimes road markings will indicate a different side to a story. Googlemap link would be nice.

beauf

This is normal behaviour in Dublin anyway. As you see someone needing to merge, you speed up to block them. Then slow down once in front. Never let anyone out.

People drive like morons in this city. But then there's hardly any cops so no one to stop them.

copperhead

she has right of way as your merging
merging lanes are to get u to speed and join the flow of traffic

Mervyn Skidmore

copperhead wrote: »

she has right of way as your merging
merging lanes are to get u to speed and join the flow of traffic

I was quickly up to speed limit of 50 and ahead of her at all times but she didn't want to let me merge in, she was trying to block me clearly, as there was a red light up ahead anyway. It was bizarre.

raxy

I've lost count of the amount of times a driver in a lane has mot being paying attention when in a traffic que & then floors it when they realise I'm going to merge in front of them.

beauf

Mervyn Skidmore wrote: »

I was quickly up to speed limit of 50 and ahead of her at all times but she didn't want to let me merge in, she was trying to block me clearly, as there was a red light up ahead anyway. It was bizarre.

Happens on the M50 all day long.

Usually have to speed up then brake, they shoot past, and you merge in behind.

They then slow down, you merge into the next lane and off you go.

bazz26

My lane syndrome.

Mint Sauce

Whilst she might have had right of way, if you matching the speed of the traffic you were merging with, and she was that far behind, I cant see a problem. Now if you were doing half the speed, then she may have been entittled to her rant.

Glass fused light

Mervyn Skidmore wrote: »

Hi. Today I was driving along and took a left turn into a slip way to merge to the right with another single lane of traffic. When I entered the merging section, I put on my indicators to merge right, checked my mirrors and there was a car in the single lane approx 50-100m behind me. The car slightly sped up and I feel was trying to block me from merging for some strange reason. I decided to merge ahead of her and then she went ballistic on the horn etc. Am I wrong? I would have had to jam on the breaks at the end of the slipway as I was running out of road. Do I have any priority seeing as I was ahead of her at all times? It would have just been easier if she had stayed course and let me merge without trying to block me.

She has the right of way on the road as you have to give way to the occupant of the lane.



That said some people are weird about cars in front of them merging into a lane. When you see someone speeding up to cut you off you have two other options
1) floor it ignoring the speed limit (illegal) until you are in the lane and once well clear gently reduce your speed back to legal. note the other driver is still likely to go mental and increase their speed too so that they can still cut you off and/or go ballistic. And the Gardai take a very dim view of the speeding.
2) reduce your speed until you can merge behind them, be aware the really mental ones could hit the breaks if you are close.

_Kaiser_

There's a number of things at play...

- People who don't like being overtaken/others merging in front of them
- Lack of general courtesy. Ideally people should lift off or move into the next lane if there's cars merging ahead of them
- People merging at anywhere up to half of the posted limit. This is dangerous idiocy but it's more and more common these days

Me I just watch the mirrors and pick a spot as I'm coming down the merging lane and slot into that, accelerating (rapidly) to the prevailing speed/limit to ensure a smooth merge at the end.