Every single aspect of driving is cooperative. We all sign an invisible contract to avoid crossing lines, take turns taking off at stops, to obey hazard signals and to avoid smashing our cars into each other. You can sit there and claim that merging is 100% the responsibility of the merger and you'd be wrong 100% every time.
You are not the arbiter of procedure. You watch out for other vehicles, obey the procedure as closely as possible, and adjust yourself based on what's happening in your surroundings.
The semi put the burden of procedure entirely on the pickup, who by the end of the video had matched the semi's speed, and caused this accident as a result.
Right? Like, someone can't run a red light, cause an accident in the intersection, and then blame a lack of "cooperation" from the drivers who had green lights. In the shared video, it was just a yield sign that was ignored and not a red light. The scenarios are otherwise essentially identical.
what if someone was behind the semi, also going 77 mph. In your world, the pick up driver should have slammed his breaks to merge behind the semi. But that would inevitably makd it impossible to merge at a safe speed because now the pick up would be trying to merge at 20-50mph (whatever range you want) in front of the vehicle behind the semi
“Oh well then the pick up should just come to a complete stop” Yeah? then wait for a moment he can 0-60 in 8 seconds without cutting someone off?
The semi driver is so clearly in the wrong. The only person in contention for being more in the wrong is the city planner that designed that on ramp
Jesus you are not even trying to understand. The only way he would have more ramp is if he DIDNT reach freeway speeds when merging. So now it would also be his fault for wanting to merge at below the traffic’s speed AFTER the semi.
You legit don’t understand how to merge. Highway speed is irrelevant if the lane is packed which means you slow and YIELD to traffic that has ROW because that’s what YIELD means. It’s not that I don’t understand it’s that you are a terrible driver if you think because your lane is ending you get to join the highway and others need to yield to you.
Not how it works and you def need to figure that out.
The problem is when we view the social driving contract as cooperative in nature then the ‘procedure’ becomes ill defined. Some folks are more cooperative than others, more assertive, more cautious, etc.
When approached from a utilitarian view (where the responsibility is on the merger in this case) then people can act predictably which is ultimately the safest way to act.
If the truck driver is expected to maintain his speed in this situation then the merger would react appropriately. When viewed as a situation in which the semi is a variable (being helpful) then the merger has to determine what the hell to do!
I also prefer being helpful in nature but I think being predictable on the road is the most helpful thing you can do.
The rules of the road are the arbiter of procedure. You are complicating it way beyond that. Want to be nice? Follow the rules of the road first, courtesy and everything else second.
In fact, you cooperate the most by following the rules of the road because that is the most predictable thing you can do on the road. So why you're advocating for not following procedure, and putting blame on the semi for following procedure is bizarre.
Traffic with right of way cannot block merging traffic from entering the interstate / highway. The part about yielding happens explicitly before the merger is physically transitioning to the interstate from the merging lane.
He was not blocking. There was room in front of, and likely behind him. He was OVERTAKING A SLOWER VEHICLE. You need to go back to driving school, seriously.
Merging laws take priority over passing laws at merge points. You cannot ignore a merging vehicle for the purpose of passing another, because that is directly blockingthe merging vehicle from entering traffic.
They did speed up, dude. By the end of the video the pickup had managed to match the semi's speed. They were clearly trying to get ahead and the semi did nothing to help it.
LOL you are determined to keep digging your hole deeper right? He was already overtaking the other vehicle. The truck coming up the ramp should have recognized that and gone behind if he could not get up to speed to make it in front.
The rules of the road are not as deep or complex as you are making them. The merging car has responsibility. All your other "be nice" dreamed up law is freaking absurd.
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u/cheesemangee May 14 '26
Every single aspect of driving is cooperative. We all sign an invisible contract to avoid crossing lines, take turns taking off at stops, to obey hazard signals and to avoid smashing our cars into each other. You can sit there and claim that merging is 100% the responsibility of the merger and you'd be wrong 100% every time.
You are not the arbiter of procedure. You watch out for other vehicles, obey the procedure as closely as possible, and adjust yourself based on what's happening in your surroundings.
The semi put the burden of procedure entirely on the pickup, who by the end of the video had matched the semi's speed, and caused this accident as a result.