Ohhh... this could spark a debate! It’s supposedly safer to use both lanes (not unnecessarily change lanes) right up to the merge point so that the process of reducing traffic to one lane is done at a lower speed and is fairer (merge one car from each lane). Keeps the traffic jam shorter too as using all the available road right up until the merge. That’s what my son was recently taught for his driving test (car). There will be others that think you should randomly join a 10 mile queue out of politeness but then get terribly cross when people use an open lane to drive up to the merge point. It’s a very emotive subject.
The problem with this is that there are so many arrogant and impatient idiots on the road who think it’s ok to push their way to the front of the queue and not merge in turn with everyone else. I do like it when a lorry driver blocks the lane to stop them doing it
In New Zealand they have a sign that says “Merge in turn, like a zip” seemed to work when I last drove there.
This seems like the safest way to do it rather then have one lane for slow/stationary traffic and a mostly empty one where people randomly slam on the anchors to squeeze into a gap. Better to have both lanes full, moving at the same (appx) speed and zip merge at the pinch point. Trouble is that anyone using the outside lane is a road hog, a cad and bounder according to some of the more ‘ranty’ forums I’ve looked at.
