Hello New Jersey? :)

I worry there's a sampling bias going on.

When I commuted to work, I'd keep the same tight pattern everyone else used, and it felt like any time I let up, some jerk would take advantage.

Then, for a while, I was suddenly paid to go between buildings on opposite sides of one of the worst traffic cities in the US. I always left with plenty of time and no urgency, so I would just stubbornly maintain plenty of stopping distance while everyone else was inches apart. Smoothing my braking pattern became a game.

If you constantly leave that much room people weaving in becomes rare enough that you barely care when it happens.

I feel like there's some bias affecting perception. Maybe it's a confound, or availability heuristic.

Confound - if you're trying to hug a bumper, and suddenly there's a gap, maybe that's because your lane is suddenly moving faster and someone's taking advantage of that. If you always have space, you'll have it even when your lane is less attractive. (ie, The space doesn't make your lane attractive, the pace does.)

Availability heuristic - if you care about people cutting you off and are adopting a strategy to prevent it, you will notice it more and put more weight on those occurrences than on all the seconds where no one is cutting you off.

Before I had that job, I would have read this comment and thought it was nuts though, so not sure if anyone will actually believe me.

FWIW when in traffic I always try to maintain enough distance ahead of me that I do not have to ever stop completely, and that I can also hopefully not use the brake.

I swear I've watched traffic clear up around me. Of course it's anecdotal, but it tends to keep things moving, even if slowly, rather than bringing everything to a halt.

Are you already familiar with "traffic waves"? Your comment reminds me of it.

http://trafficwaves.org/

Do you never merge or change lanes in heavy traffic? Because if you’ve ever done any of those things, you rely on people leaving space and letting you in. Why deny others the same opportunities?

Driving in traffic is a cooperative activity. The only times you don’t need to accommodate and be accommodated by other drivers are when there are hardly any around.

> Why deny others the same opportunities?

Almost exclusively these people will zip around a line and force their way in at the end. Even kindergartners are taught budging in line is not good.

Why is this the problem on the people actually being considerate and are in the correct lane at the appropriate time?

No one was born in the correct lane at the beginning of time. They inserted themselves there at some point. In traffic, the only way they could have done so is to move in front of another driver.

Zipper merging [0] exercises a different kindergarten skill, taking turns. Still, "lines" are a small minority of lane-changing situations, all of which involve taking the open space in an adjacent lane.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_(traffic)

Yeah and zipper merges don't increase traffic flow, they combine backup congestion so that the impact of the selfish driver is minimized. It is implemented so those who will not take their turn as intended don't have as much negative impact on other drivers.

"Lines", to use your emphasis, are by far the major time component so for me this is a meaningless distinction. Normal traffic merges should of course be accepted gracefully.

Because merging early is worse. How is creating an artificial backup in one lane considerate?

I find it inconsiderate frankly, because it forces an arbitrary decision rather then just patiently using the available road as marked.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/mark-phelan/2018/07/0...

I have a casual theory that driving in the US relies upon every individual enforcing their own idea of what the rules should be, inherent to our culture. I really enjoy driving in Europe, but maybe it's delusional. There's an aggressive indifference that I perceive.

We should mostly be on bikes and scooters anyway.

I have driven in both the US and a few European countries, and I would disagree with your proposed cause but agree somewhat with the effect. Having driven on long-distance road trips in the US, drivers are noticeably more competent than in (sub)urban highways, probably because the latter are filled with drivers who don't drive as much at those speeds. This is often inherently true in many western European countries in which driving usually has reasonable public transit alternatives so the selection of drivers on roads may tend to be more skilled and experienced.

That being said, in some European cities drivers are not very keen to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, even when pedestrians are already in the median "island." I haven't noticed any US city of a similar size that had drivers quite so negligent about crosswalks.

In every US city I've ever spent time in, including San Francisco and Portland, you're taking your life into your own hands every time you use a crosswalk. Or even a sidewalk, as people will just turn into driveways without checking if the sidewalk is clear first.

I agree with one exception- Seattle. For all of Seattle's faults the drivers are very aware of pedestrians and very courteous towards them.

Agreed. Also, some college campuses I've been to are great with drivers stopping for pedestrians.

Isn't that against the regulations?

We were taught that squeezing in is forbidden unless you're heading for an exit or something like that.