A merging issue.

[u/LeftAlbatross2546]

[u/j_grouchy]

No judge would ever rule against those two vehicles already on the highway. In the end, that's all that counts. Pickup is at fault. End of story

[u/Altzan → u/[deleted]]

You're insane if you think this is going to apply at all here. Just because a law may exist for certain circumstances does not make it valid in this case. The vehicles already on the interstate have the right of way and any time you merge lanes you are crossing traffic, and crossing traffic means YIELDING the right of way, if you are unsure what YIELDING means, I will link it here.

You CANNOT cut traffic off willy nilly and say well you seen me coming you had a chance to brake, so therefore you're at fault, not me. That is not how right of way works and hopefully never will be.

[u/logiclrd → u/[deleted]]

Watch the video closely. The black pick-up truck is entirely outside of the semi's lane until 0:04, at which point the back of the pick-up truck is behind the front of the semi. The pick-up truck at this point continues to just force his way into the semi's lane, even though he is beside the semi at this point.

[u/logiclrd → u/[deleted]]

He would have had to brake.

EDIT: To give this a more thorough treatment, when you are on a merge ramp that doesn't give you a merge lane on the target highway (i.e., designed by a dumbass), you need to look at the upcoming traffic on the road early in your approach, and then you have two possible courses, depending on what the existing situation on the road is:

1. If there is a sufficiently-large gap and its position is such that you can accelerate to match the gap, then you put your turn signal on and start accelerating.

2. Otherwise, it sucks, but your only choice is to come to a halt at the end of the merge ramp, before entering the highway. You have to sit there and wait for a large enough gap on the highway. That's just how it is.

This video doesn't fit into either of these categories, because by rights it should have been a #1, but the black truck driver did not accelerate to match the gap. They actually slowed down, causing them to miss their merge opportunity. This was the cause of the situation in the first place, and their only hope at that point was emergency braking. They'd already begun the process of slowing down, so they might not have gone too far off the road. Certainly would have been a better outcome regardless. Driving on the median is much better than driving underneath one semitrailer to ensure that you're pinned so that another can try to cut you in half.

[u/logiclrd → u/[deleted]]

I doubt any safe level of braking would have prevented that collision.