When entering a freeway you must be at or near freeway speed by the bottom of the ramp if you wish to merge with traffic already on the freeway. Remember it's called a "merge", which means to combine (this being the key) with the existing traffic. The entrance lanes are provided in order to allow you get up to a reasonable speed in order to merge onto the freeway. They are not in place in order for you to send a text message, change the CD in the player, sight-see, or contemplate the meaning of life. Please utilize these lanes for their intended purpose.
Attempting to merge when moving significantly slower than the existing traffic will result in A) a large backup on the freeway or B) you becoming the hood ornament on a Kenworth. Going 30MPH until the entrance lane ends and then hitting your brakes when you realize that traffic is moving more than twice as fast as you will not help the situation. Additionally, when your speed is so ridiculously slow, it creates similar problems for everyone behind you on the entrance ramp.
This applies generally to all Seattle drivers but specifically to drivers of Hondas and Volkswagons.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
An open note to Seattle drivers
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3 comments:
got stuck behind a DWA?
Well said! You'd just love the roads here in the Northeast. Several states (Pa. and Mass. for example) love to put stop signs at the end of the entrance ramp. So you race down the ramp, stop and then start all over while you try to merge.
You forgot to mention yielding the right of way at really inappropriate times, and the endless four way stop ritual that feels like the scene in some 80s movie where an American in Japan keeps bowing lower and lower forcing his emissary to do the same.
Seattle Untimely had a great episode about Seattle drivers last year.
http://www.twistedpine.org/seattleuntimely/index.php5?episodeNum=7
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