Merge In Turn

Coming to the final week or so of the improvements at J3 of the M60, which ordinarily I would use twice a day ferrying my good lady to and from her office. For the duration of the work I've been avoiding it in the evenings in favour of the A34 since the tailback has often filled the anticlockwise slip road right back to the motorway (about a mile), but I couldn't avoid it on Monday.

I noticed the contractors had put up "Please Merge In Turn" signs to encourage gentlemanly practice among drivers approaching from both clockwise and anticlockwise slip roads (which at the moment both feed into a single lane) and on the southerly approach from the A34 (ditto). Once complete, both of these flows of traffic will have three lanes available so you can see how much better it will be. Eventually.

But the appearance of these signs set me thinking (again) about something that has always perplexed (annoyed) me about British drivers. Whenever a road reduces in lanes, from 3 to 2, or 2 to 1, they seem hell bent on dividing into two warring camps. One lot will move into the open lane often several miles back, despite any long queue, and sit there in their righteousness inching forwards every few seconds. The other lot, perceiving that the soon-to-be closed lane has been totally vacated by the first lot, will stay in that lane until the last minute, and then attempt to cut in. At which point the righteousness of the first lot boils over into righteous indignation as they hog the bumper of the car in front to freeze out any car wanting to "push in."

This behaviour is a constant source of amusement to me, on those days where I'm in an expansive, forgiving mood. And annoyance when I'm not feeling so full of the milk of human kindness. My question - one of my questions - to the drivers in the first group is: at what point do you decide that you should abandon the unoccupied road in front of you in favour of a lengthy, barely moving queue? Which distance would you consider socially acceptable? 200 metres? 500? A mile? Two miles? And what good do you think it does to sit queuing in one lane when there's a totally empty lane going to waste immediately to your left, or right?

What is so magical about the appearance of a "Please Merge In Turn" sign that lights up the lightbulb in your head and makes you realise that it makes more sense for everyone to use as many lanes as possible, for as long as possible, and then merge in turn at the point where one lane disappears. Not to mention being a fairer and less stressful alternative.

Is it embarrassment that makes you try to stop drivers merging late from the other lane? A realisation that you too could have "pushed" to the front and not wasted all that time queuing? Or a determination to force the other person, even if only for one more car length, to "waste" a fraction of the time that you've wasted in your queue? Can't you see that merging in turn means no-one gets an unfair advantage, or disadvantage, over anyone else?

As someone aptly commented the other day: you are the result of 4 billion years of evolution. Fucking act like it.