Do you understand traffic? I pretty much doubt it.
No, 99% of people driving in traffic aren't idiots. About 5% are, and that's all it takes. My most pleasant finding from all those years of driving was to note that the vast, vast majority of Houston daily commuters were absolutely pro drivers when it comes to congestion.
A good friend of mine and I have a standing argument about proper behavior when, driving, one encounters a "lane closed ahead" sign. He insists that the right thing to do is to abandon the to-be-closed lane as soon as feasible [tangent: he also gets mad at drivers who want to merge later, describing them as "cutters"], while I maintain that the best way to minimize the effect of a lane closure is to use whatever lanes are legal/open for as long as possible -- because leaving an open lane of travel unused only exacerbates the problem.
Who's right?
Disclaimer: I grew up driving in the Boston area (yes, among other "Massholes"), and my philosophy is "try never to use your brakes on the highway, and try even harder never to require anyone else to brake unnecessarily".
But that's a big "if" -- too many drivers are like your friend, and work themselves up into a blood-boiling rage at the thought of someone "cutting" by engaging in proper zipper merging. Tell your friend the problem is he's thinking of the merge as a competition with a "winner" (person who ends up in front) and "loser" (person who ends up behind), instead of looking for the option that maximizes efficiency for everyone.
I agree with you. Fully packing an 'ending' lane until it actually ends is most efficient from a road usage point of view.
(I have lived for 10+ years in the Boston area but did not grow up there.
If everyone merges early, the cars that could have been in that mile of unused lane, will instead be in the full lane, moving the entire queue backwards a mile, clogging up more exits and onramps, and making the jam worse.
Use all available road, that's what it's there for.
Do you understand what causes traffic? That harder you brake, the bigger and longer the wave of people braking behind you will be. By braking less hard, you are causing less traffic.
And yes, 99% of people driving in traffic are idiots who don't know how to drive or they wouldn't be tailgating and slamming the brakes every 6 feet wasting thousands of hours of people's collective time by causing needlessly large waves of braking behind them due to the fact that those people are also following too close, amplifying the problem.
See http://trafficwaves.org/ for further reading