Highway Exits, Question... (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

Here's something I've always wondered. WHY are some highway and route exits so damned short? Don't know if they are like this in other civilized parts of the country, but here in NJ, we have exits that barley give you 2 seconds to merge before heading off into another exit turn.
I know highways where constructed back when a cars top speed was 30 MPH, or there abouts, but this dosn't include new highways constructed in the last 30 years or so. Anyone have an explination for this? Makes a hell of a headache for those of us in the slow lane trying to avoid cars making the quick merge .

 

[Daren Welsh]

Exits are only a suggestion here in the Houston area. I've seen several people drive trucks and cars off the freeway at 60+ mph across the grass divider to the feeder road. Then of course you've got the intersections where a street meets the feeder road at 90 degrees and there are two lanes turning right onto the feeder. It's one thing to merge with 60+ mph traffic from a stop sign, but with another lane on your left edging forward so you can hardly see oncoming traffic? ugh ... but the trophy still goes to those interstate intersections with minimal merging warnings. There are several intersestions, from I-45 N to I-10 W for one, where one lane from each freeway merges into one with a very short distance to merge. To make things interesting, they only put up one small sign with the "two-lanes merge" symbol. The first 3 or 4 times I drove that part of the freeway, I had no idea I was actually merging. I'm just glad there were no cars in the lane I merged with. I suprised there aren't daily accidents on that intersection.

 

[Mark C Sherman]

Here in Boston No One knows How to MERGE

 

[Jared_B]

Here in WA there are a lot of short merges. One I drive by or on everyday is the cause of a major jam every day. You get about two block to get up to 60, then have to merge at an odd angle so you can't see traffic on the freeway easily.

At least the newer highways have been designed with this in mind. Make is so merging traffic has like a 1/4 mi to get up to speed, and make it impossible to cut over early with a barrier.

 

[Jay H]

What else is nutzo are the mergers where you have about 50ft where you have people mergeing onto the interstate while people are trying to exit the interstate, all trying to crisscross themselves at varying speeds. People exiting are going 40-50 and people merging are going 20-40 with hardly any acceleration/deceleration for both of them!

Jay

 

[Dave Gorman]

Here we typically have nice long on-ramps but people are too stupid to realize they're supposed to use all that distance to accelerate. I'm usually lucky to be going 45 when it's time to merge. And then, of course, there are the super-idiots that stop at the end of the on-ramp waiting for a break in traffic Welcome to Nebraska!

 

[Christ Reynolds]

Here in Boston No One knows How to MERGE

AGREED! maybe you and i are the only two in the boston area who know how to do so. i was driving on the braintree split two days ago, heading south, i'm sure you know of the merging nightmare that exists there. anyway, because of a lack of merging talents, i saw this new taurus SLAM into an unmarked crown vic. the crown vic was up against the guard rail, it couldnt move, the rear tires were pinched in from the crash, they couldnt move either. i had to keep driving, or maybe i would have been in a similar accident. anyway, boston drivers suck big time.

CJ

 

[Dome Vongvises]

A quick question that's somewhat related: how do you know whether or not an exit onto an Interstate is the one that directly connects to the Interstate itself? This basically means that if you want to go in a certain direction, you would stay in that lane and turn right or you would turn left to go in the other direction. I ask because some exits onto the highways remain on the same side of the road (one goes directy while the other loops around to go the other way).

 

[Leila Dougan]

They just recently redid the junction where the two interstates cross each other, thank goodness!

The old way, there were exists on both the right and left sides! It would be tough to figure out which lane you needed to be in and then cross 4 lanes of traffic to get there, not to mention the fact that the right and left lanes were essentially "slow" lanes. Also, the on-ramp and off-ramps would share a single small piece of lane so you get the situation Jay described.

Now, all exists are on the right with nice long ramps. Only problem is, people don't accelerate for the full length of the ramp, so you end up doing 35-40 and havingto merge with cars doing 65-70. Dave, seems Nebraskans aren't the only ones that do this . . .

 

[Mark C Sherman]

Christ I have to drive Home from Work Every Night Through The Braintree Split (I Live in Weymouth). I just Sit in my car a laugh my a$$ off at what some of these people try to do. My Favorite is when some is in the far left lane that goes to Boston(93) and when they are about 2 feet from the Turn They all of a sudden they realize that they have to Go to Plymouth not Boston. I am in Constant Fear of My life when I Drive Through the dreaded Braintree Split.


For those of you Who are not From the Boston Area Trust me when I say you have Not lived until you Try and navigate on a Mass High way.

 

[MikeAlletto]

Highway driving is so much fun. You see something new everyday! This isn't related to highway driving, but I was pulling up to a light that was already yellow for a while and by the time I got to the line it was red...the moron behind me had the balls to lay on his horn becase I stopped at the red light instead of gunning it and running the red light. I just sat there and pointed at the light with one hand while the other flipped him off...what an idiot. I'm not about to stick my car into the intersection when its red just so he can save a few seconds on his commute.

 

[Louis Stettiner]

Mike you gave Him the New New York State "BIRD"

 

[Grant B]

The Intersate system was built with certain standards that made most of the nations freeways almost interchangable,
Mass & NJ started on their state systems before the National and then got incorporated into the National; hence the differences

 

[AviTevet]

Mike, next time smile pleasantly and wave. That pisses them off to no end.