I've seen it in the States before, but this was the first time I had seen it in Canada.
A lane on the 401 was being shut down for construction.
Usually, this results in some jerk (or lots of them) making a free-for-all dive to gain one or two lousy car lengths over their fellow drivers - running down the last millimetre of the closed lane, squeezing in at the very last second, their schedules obviously being so much more important than everyone else's.
So two truckers took it upon themselves to bring some order to the chaos.
One runs in the lane that will continue. The other stays in the lane to be closed, his front bumper aligned with the other truck's rear bumper.
When they get to the actual lane closure, the one truck tucks in behind the other, and everyone else follows, merging in a civilized fashion.
Just like everyone typically does in Gemany without this trucker-imposed discipline.
Would be interesting to know if better driver behaviour is observed further down the road.
Maybe it's akin to the "No Broken Windows" approach of New York City Mayor Rudi Giuliano, which has been given at least some credit for improving that city's livability. Stop the minor petty misbehaviours, and the larger ones are reduced too.
So, kudos to these knights of the road for helping make our roads a nicer place to be.
A bit of a shame though that we need them to make us behave better.
Not so clear cut imo. In the US I've seen signs telling driver to use both lanes until the merge. Why do ypou think that is?
No reason to leave one lane vacant for miles. What's the matter with keeping both lanes full, and then merging alternately when they go into one? No big deal and certainly not dangerous, especially if traffic is crawling which it often is in these cases.
The actions of the trucker who takes it upon himself to block traffic are dangerous and little different from the left lane blockers you complain about.
Posted by: peckster | June 27, 2012 at 03:22 PM
At lane closures here in Minnesota construction zones (and other states, too, I imagine) drivers are encouraged to continue to occupy their lane until very late in the merge zone. Apparently this allows for a steadier flow of traffic into the single lane.
They call it The Zipper Effect:
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/trafficeng/workzone/doc/When-latemerge-zipper.pdf
Posted by: Tim Winker | June 27, 2012 at 03:32 PM
And you praise that trucker behavior? When will drivers here stop being obnoxious with the use of ending lanes? All that the truckers did is increase the bottlenecks. You need to exploit that lane til the end and merge both lanes seamlessly and everyone is a winner. But, then understanding the concept of seamless and courteous lane merging (without any of the lanes really brought to a standstill) is way above the level of drivers out here.
Posted by: Zev | June 27, 2012 at 07:55 PM
I don't see it as much as I used to, but I don't live in the city anymore. I always gave a big thumbs up to the trucks that stayed in the right lane and moved to the right far enough to block the shoulder runners. Usually the other trucks would keep close enough behind to not let them in, either.
Posted by: Brian | June 28, 2012 at 09:21 AM
Hi Doug, nice story you have here. Here in my country, majority of motorists are lacking the road discipline so we have many vehicular accident here every month.
Posted by: arbitrage theory | June 30, 2012 at 02:30 PM
2012/07/01
Re: Trucker-imposed discilline...
You should know better than publishing such a dimwitted article!
Fortunately, we know what the truckers are imposing on our highways and we act accordingly.
Marc
Posted by: m a richard | July 01, 2012 at 01:05 PM
Tom Vanderbilt in his book Traffic (Knopf, 2008) quotes studies indicating that traffic flow is improved when both lanes are used right up to the closure. While I agree that it seems impolite to drive down an open lane that may close 1 km down the road while other cue up, is it not more considerate to make the most efficient use of the roads ahead thus minimizing wait times for drivers coming up behind?
http://tomvanderbilt.com/traffic/the-book/
Posted by: Anthony Tremblay | July 01, 2012 at 08:10 PM
You missed the mark on this one, Jim. The four wheelers are jerks for using the lane until it ceases to exist, but the truckers make our roads a nicer place to be when they do EXACTLY the same thing?
Homer
Posted by: Homer | July 03, 2012 at 07:45 AM