Natalie's Blog

Everyday on my way home from work there is ridiculous traffic because of construction and people’s lack of ability to merge. So I’ve come up with a system of merging that cuts my time by about 10-15 minutes. And thanks to my job, I’ve built a simple map to illustrate this : ) I get on the freeway at the green star (which is covered by the word “Ramp.”) I have to merge with a bunch of cars at the red star. This area causes frustration because the same lane is used for people getting on the freeway and people exiting onto I-215. At the blue star (here is where the fancy merging starts) as soon as I can, I merge from the right lane to the far left lane, thus skipping all the idiot mergers. Then at the yellow star I merge from the far left lane to the far right lane because of construction. People in the left lane slow to a stop!!! Then after right after the construction area there is an on-ramp in the right lane. So again, I merge to the far left lane. All of this with-in a few miles... my mother would scold me. But it really does cut a good 10-15 minutes off my commute. And of course I use my blinker and give the wave to people who let me in.