If you're already at highway speed half way up the ramp, then finding a slot to merge into is a lot easier for both you, and for the drivers you'll be merging in front of.
You're in the Sierra Nevada foothills, I believe. Lots of places in this country, entering an interstate means all lanes have traffic. It also means you can have cars behind you on the ramp coming up to highway speed and jamming on the brakes to come to a near stop can cause real problems. Under these circumstances, drivers in the right lane can't easily change to the left lane to give entering traffic more room.
It also means that if you're any kind of decent human being, you compromise a little on maintaining speed. You -
sometimes - ease up or even touch your brakes to allow entering traffic to merge - even if the sign on the ramp says they should yield.
It's not only polite, but it also keeps traffic moving safely.
Of course, some people are selfish fuqqs by nature, don't give a schidt about anybody but themselves, and would cheerfully run a soccer mom into a guardrail before giving up a single car length of space.
I'm sure you're not a selfish fuqq, of course.
Central Indiana - so like that kiddie course they call Indianapolis? Yep, that whole 65/70/465 thing you got going on there is rough. Like a bunny. A cuddly, cuddly bunny...
I've spent a bunch of hours behind the wheel in: DC, New York, Atlanta, Houston, Chile, San Francisco, Minneapolis/Saint Paul, New Zealand, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, NYC, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Denver and the absolute kicker of them all: China. Heck, China is so crazy, that I once got off a flight at JFK straight from Hong Kong, drove through Manhattan, and was amazed at how disciplined and courteous the NY drivers were.
The thing is, in all those places, life was better when merging traffic entered the slow lane at the speed of traffic. Whether that be at 1 mph in a jam or 80 mph (the speed limit on I15 south of SLC)
Planning on entering at 30 mph below the speed of traffic flow, and you're a moron, as well as a menace to those other drivers that will have to jam on their brakes instead of making minor speed adjustments to let you in (if they have to do anything at all). Sure, sometimes major adjustments need to be made to let someone enter. But to hobble yourself by planning on entering at a huge speed differential to the flow of traffic is the act of (as the thread title states) an "Idiot Driver".
