Most people think it is polite to “let people in” on the road.
I do not think “letting people in” is polite. I think it is dangerous.
I think endangering people is seldom polite.
When I told him how I felt about “letting people in,” an acquaintance of mine told me a story of someone once upon a time who stopped, on the expressway (on the freeway! in the middle of a limited-access 65-mile-per-hour interstate!), to let somebody in from an entrance ramp. Causing a multiple-car pile-up. Very polite.
I have been in two bad accidents caused by people “letting people in,” and witnessed a third near-miss caused by somebody forcing himself in. My opinion, then, is not just based on an acquaintance’s possibly apocryphal stories. It is based on personal experience.
In my first “letting people in” accident, it was I who was “let in.”
I was in Key West, Florida. In other words, I was a tourist. I had no idea where I was. I was exiting a gas station, all gassed-up, in preparation for my return trip north. I wanted to turn left onto a three-lane road with a passing lane in the middle. There was a long, jammed line of cars in the lane directly in front of me, edging slowly to my right. Somebody stopped and waved me through.
I was only nineteen at the time. What did I know?
So I follow instructions like a good boy and go where I am waved.
Whereupon a tourist from Nebraska blasting up the middle passing lane with a van full of kids plows into my beautiful 1965 Mustang with the Landau roof. Causing me no end of trouble I don’t want to go into right now.
You see, I couldn’t see the tourist from Nebraska approaching because the line of cars in front of me was in the way. And the car that waved me through couldn’t see the tourist from Nebraska because he was passing through its blind spot.
(The person who waved me through, by the way, turned around and took a powder after the crash, of course. Leaving me to the tender mercies of the local constabulary.)
I learned my lesson. From then on, whenever anybody waves me through, I wave them on. I’ll wait, thank you. Sometimes they get mad. How dare I not accept their “politeness”? Well, Sir or Madam, I daren’t because your “politeness” is not polite—safety first is my motto.
In my second “letting in” accident, it was somebody else who was let in.
I was on another three-lane road on a wintry day. The traffic was heavy and slow. I was moving up, at a very slow rate of speed, in the center passing lane, when somebody waves a new Buick in from the gas station on my right. The Buick thereupon plows into my right door and rams me into a snowbank.
The Buick could not see me coming, because the line of cars was in the way. And I could not see the Buick that hit me coming, for the same reason. I was also probably in the waver’s blind spot.
The waver, of course, once more, took off again. Too modest, no doubt, to accept the thanks due such courtesy.
Consider the following graphic.
In the first accident, the Key West accident, I was the green car. In the second accident, I was the red car. Either way, “letting people in” made a big mess for everybody involved. Except, of course, for the person doing the waving. The “polite” one.
Sometimes people insist that you be “polite” to them. Even if you are trying to save their life.
The third time I witnessed the foolishness of “letting people in,” I was in the position of “waver.” Only I wasn’t waving. I was sitting on a two-lane road in a long jammed up line of cars, edging slowly forward. A guy in a big pick-up truck full of chrome and Big-Wheels and floodlights coming out of a Burger King parking lot to my right is getting impatienter and impatienter. He’s revving, he’s jerking forward, then he escalates to beeping and yelling and making very impolite gestures, all intended to get me to be “polite” and let him through to go to the left, in the opposite direction. I’m shaking my head “No.” I’m pointing, trying to draw his attention to the oncoming traffic to my left. But he is having none of it. Finally, he just guns it and I have to stop and let him through, because it looks like he is ready to smash into me, if that’s what it takes to make me be “polite.”
Whereupon an oncoming car screeches to a halt inches from his giant chrome fender, beeping like a banshee, and he is rubbernecking all around, trying to see where all the hubbub is coming from.
I roll down my window and yell, “Seeee?!!!!” I don’t think he quite got what I was getting at. I’ll tell you, though. I would have gladly stuck around to tell my side of the story, as the non-waver in situ, had a collision ensued.
Consider the graphic. I’m the red car this time.
Now, you might argue that, while, yes, perhaps “letting people in” across traffic can be a little dangerous, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with letting people in when they are going your way.
Consider the graphic:
Yes, it is true. Technically, if you let somebody in who is going your way, there is less danger. At least to the car being let in, and to the oncoming cars in the opposing lane.
On the other hand, how do you really know if somebody is going your way? Yes, sometimes they signal. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people forget to turn signals off. Sometimes people change their minds.
Not to mention the person behind you who, perhaps momentarily distracted, promptly rear-ends you—when you decide to abruptly halt a moving line of traffic to let somebody in.
Moreover, the above graphic allows us to consider this matter of “politeness” in its full glory.
I wonder, has it ever occurred to anybody, that, when you stop to speed one car a little faster and more merrily on its way, you are stifling, holding up, snubbing, yes, “being impolite to,” a whole fleet of cars behind you?!
How many do I have there, on the graphic, lined up waiting patiently behind the red car while it politely lets the yellow car in? Eight? Eight cars, sitting there suffering impoliteness, while one car enjoys the beneficence of your very selective politeness.
I know there are reasons why people don’t think about the cars behind them: “Out of sight, out of mind”; “What is behind us does not matter!” etc. But they’re there, ignore them as you will, sullying with their fuming exhausts the purity of roadway “politeness.”
In spite of what I have had to say in the foregoing, there is one case in which “letting people in,” I believe, is genuinely polite, and not particularly dangerous to anybody.
This is the instance where there is a single lane of traffic, moving in one direction only, with an entrance ramp, or some other form of single lane ingress, feeding into it.
This kind of situation often occurs on limited-access expressways when there is construction going on and traffic is funneled into one lane. I don’t want to talk about how wonderfully impolite many people are when they see traffic up ahead being funneled into one lane and refuse to get over into that lane, instead barreling on in the passing lane all the way up to the barrier and then butting their way in to the funnel lane at the last second. I would be willing to bet that those same people are the first to “let people in” in dangerous cross-traffic situations like the ones I have described above. Somehow the mentality seems the same to me.
What I want to talk about now is how to manage merging traffic.
Consider the graphic:
The way you are supposed to merge two lanes of traffic into one in a situation such as this is by taking turns. As can seen by the alternating green and red cars subsequent to the entrance ramp in the above graphic. Taking turns is easy. We learn to do it in kindergarten. They taught me to do it in kindergarten, anyway. I don’t know what they teach now. Probably not taking turns, judging by the difficulty people have mastering this arcane concept on the road.
And so there it is. In the spirit of always ending on a positive note. The truly, actually polite, non-dangerous, thoughtful, truly, actually helpful, form of “letting people in”!
Ted Silar 