I believe it could be beneficial as a whole (would like to see more on how it varies depending on the speed, since people are more likely to overbrake if someone jumps in a tight space and the merged line is moving faster). But what those articles don’t mention is that in the moment it’s not beneficial to the people already in the merge lane that the “cheating” cars move ahead of, only to those that are moving behind you. If people well in front of you let someone in that could help you, so we all need to agree to do it for everyone to see some of that benefit even if at the time you do it it is costly to your time.
I used to crowd people out, but decided it’s not worth the extra few seconds and annoyance to risk bumping the merging car or the one in front of me (which could really delay me and everyone else). It’s just not worth the trouble.
That would be fine if it were beneficial to the collective whole, but when you enter a merge lane to jump cars, you’re doing it to the detriment of others. Merging the 4 cars that actually need to get into the flow of traffic is much quicker and more efficient than needing to merge 20 because people jumped over to move up the line. That’s not efficient whatsoever. I’m done with the point after this post, but if you’re jumping over to move up 6 cars, you’re actually bogging down the merge system.
Not really relevant, but the thread is off the rails at this point, but this “merging lanes to gain advantage” discussion reminded me of an article I read where ppl were getting off at an exit, driving straight through the offramp intersection in the left-turn lane to get back on the gridlocked freeway to jump a whole quarter mile of cars.
Don’t most express lines these days say “roughly 10 items or less”? And if you’re counting my items, you probably have deeper issues with humanity to deal with than waiting the extra 8 seconds for 2 additional items to get scanned.