Friar Bijou wrote:
Stopping dead at the spot marked "A" is, at best, stupid. Speeds are low and 150m is plenty of space to merge. A slow roll to between "A" and "B" will allow for safer merging.
Yup. Assuming there's no reason for anyone to get into the merge lane, of course. It's possible though, that they had problems with people getting into the lane from the left and causing accidents, maybe? I know I see people (totally topic appropriate!) who have the most annoying habit of automatically getting into the farthest right lane they can, ignoring things like that it's a merge lane, or becomes a right turn only lane in 200 feet, etc. I've also seen people zip into a newly opened right hand lane on the freeway that becomes an exit only lane at the next offramp, just to try to bypass a few cars during rush hour traffic. Insane, yes. Causing more traffic problems, yes. But it's what people do.
But yeah, in an ideal world where people have brains inside their skulls, there should be zero reason to stop there, much less have a yield sign there making them stop.