Bostonist Rant: How to Merge

In the past, Bostonist has risen to the defense of Boston drivers - perhaps more out of regional chauvinism than reason, but still - and we tend to think that their selfishness is actually a good thing, because it makes them, if nothing else, hyper-alert for a chance to get ahead. But last night, we witnessed the downside of automotive self-interest, in a classic example of what philosophers call the Collective Action Problem - everyone was trying to get ahead, and everyone ended up getting screwed. It made us shake our head at how dumb people can be, and our only hope is that some of the people doing this dumb thing on Route 3 last night will read this post and change their foolish ways.

So we were heading south through Duxbury around 9:30 p.m., and we saw one of those flashing signs saying “LEFT LANE ENDS . . . SQUEEZE RIGHT . . . ONE MILE.” (We love “squeeze right,” by the way. It sounds so much more loving than “merge.”) So, like the law-abiding citizen we are, we merged right at the first opportunity. Then we tried a little experiment - we made sure to keep about two car lengths between our car and the one in front of us, so other people could merge too. But nobody took the bait. The half-mile warning came and went, and still no one pulled in. Traffic got slower and slower, but the folks in the left lane (who were not moving appreciably faster than us in the right lane) stuck by their guns and did not move over. Finally, we were within 100 feet of the end - you could actually see the traffic cones closing off the left lane, and still everyone waited, waited, waited, till the last moment, making the merging process as slow as possible. Everyone was so concerned with not letting a single car get in front of them that in the end, the whole thing slowed to a crawl.

So next time, people, if you’re in the right lane, just leave a little space in front of you, and if you’re in the left lane, for the love of God and Commonwealth, just move over. Bostonist promises you it will work better, and when you’re letting other people in, you’ll get a warm, fuzzy, civic participation feeling that’s almost as good as voting. Oh, but we also have this piece of advice: If you try to creep to the head of the line in the breakdown lane, be warned: We will sooner total our beloved ‘98 Corolla than give you a goddamn inch.

The government of New Zealand has an awesome website full of driving tips with neat little pictures like this one. Unfortunately, due to some kind of transfer error or something, every single picture shows people driving on the wrong side of the road. We took the liberty of reversing this image, which demonstrates how merging ought to work.