Some think merging should be on driver’s test
It’s a frequent cause of driving conflict, but not included on provincial road test
Every day, Dave Paisley sees drivers dangerously misusing merging lanes, and as a full-time semi driver, his daily route criss-crossing the Queen City gives him plenty of opportunity to see these mistakes.
From drivers not looking at highway traffic as they fly down the lane, to not speeding up enough to match highway speeds, to coming to a complete stop, Paisley has seen it all.
Responding to people misusing merging lanes is particularly challenging for him — with his 53-footlong trailer weighing in at around 90,000 pounds — because he can’t brake or change lanes as quickly as a regular vehicle.
“If you’re in a car, you need one car space to move over. We need about 10. So we get trapped in there and the only option we have is to stand on the brakes,” he said of semi drivers.
“If someone hits the brakes and they’re coming out in front of us, we could run over them.”
Paisley said he’s seen people come down a merging lane going 80 km/h, not looking at traffic on the highway, then panicking when they get to the end of the lane and see his semi.
“I’ve had cars that will drive into the side of my truck. I’ve seen cars actually go in the ditch because they panicked,” he said.
To address the issue, Paisley would like to see more driver training on how to merge, and wants a merge to be included in the Class 5 drivers licence road test.
The road test taken by every new driver across Canada includes the same basic elements, said Shay Shpak, SGI’S director of driver development and safety services: Right and left turns, controlled and uncontrolled intersections, starting and stopping, parallel parking, lane changing, traffic lights, a varied speed zone, monitoring following distances and driver observation skills.
“I think they focus on the fundamental driving skills that are most crucial for driving on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
But the test can’t test for everything.
“It’s not practical or possible to test all critical driving skills on a road test,” said Shpak. She cited driving on gravel roads, driving at night and sharing the road with emergency vehicles as some of the critical skills not tested for.
Merging or highway driving is not tested on in Regina, although Shpak said some rural locations include a highway driving portion without a merge.
Merging is part of Class 5 driver training, however, which is mandatory in Saskatchewan. Of the six in-car training hours required, Shpak said one of these is dedicated to highways and merging, and there is an in-class lesson on it. There are also questions about merging on the written test.
Shpak gave some pointers for those who might be confused about what to do when merging.
“When you’re entering that merging lane, you want to take a look at the roadway that you’re coming up to, pick your spot, adjust your speed and merge in,” she said, adding that the purpose of the merging lane is to build your speed to match that of the road you’re moving onto.
“You don’t want to slow down or stop on a merge lane. That’s not safe. You want to merge into traffic at the same speed that the traffic is going.”
Ron Buddecke is an owner and driver instructor at the Royale Driving Academy in Regina. He said that as long as students have a good instructor, merging shouldn’t need to be part of the road test.
He does an hour of in-car highway training with his students, and dedicates half an hour solely to merging, although he said this can vary from instructor to instructor.
Outside of SGI’S guidelines, Buddecke said instructors can focus on what they think is best.
“I feel that merging is really important; therefore, I give them quite a bit of time on merging,” he said.
But Buddecke noted that drivers already on the highway need to be courteous to those trying to merge.
“I’ve seen people driven off the road by rude people who don’t leave a space for somebody to come into, so it goes both ways.”
Arif Zaheer, driver instructor at Shan Driving School, would like merging to be included on the road test.
“We spend one hour on highway driving in the lessons, so it should be in the road test, too,” he said, adding that making the test just 10 minutes longer would give enough time to include a merge.
Dean Kuski’s three sons have all gone through SGI driver training. He said more training on how to merge is needed and that it should be a part of the road test.
“I’ve seen so many near-collisions, and in fact, I’ve seen one collision,” he said.
“One time I had to lock up my brakes because the person (in front of me) kind of came around the corner, and they were going fast enough that I would have thought they were just going to continue on, and then they came to a very abrupt stop,” Kuski said. He managed to stop in time and avoided a collision.
Paisley said he doesn’t remember learning anything about merging in driver training.
“I don’t think it’s enough (education) and I think that the driver’s test should incorporate going on a highway,” he said. “I just think that the test should be more difficult and the course should be more exhaustive.”