Last week I climbed up on my oh-so-very-high horse and I asked why we don’t seem to care about indicating on our roads anymore. I said in that piece that I’m not one for complaining too much. I’m about to prove myself a liar, because I’m ready to mount my capall again – but this time I’m giving out about merging lanes. I've even added a little poll at the bottom of this piece to see if our readers are early or late mergers.

From my experience I don’t think that some of our road users fully understand the concept of merging lanes and merging traffic. I’m not just talking about slip roads onto motorways or dual carriageways; I’ll cover motorway driving another time. What I’m talking about today is merging lanes where a dual carriageway turns into a single lane. The example I’m going to use is on the N11 between Dublin and the Beehive pub in Wicklow.

If you’ve ever driven to Wexford after work on a Friday you’ll know that things can be a bit heavy on the traffic front. What happens is that when you start to approach the end of the dual carriageway you notice that the left lane trails back for about two kilometres, but the right hand lane is nearly empty. For some reason people opt not to use the right hand land - which would give them another couple of kilometres of road to bring them to a merge point which was designed to aid the flow of traffic.

I was the early merger soldier. I used to get frustrated and an inkling of road rage and resentment would slip through because I felt it was unfair that other drivers didn’t merge the way I did. Then one day I figured, if you can’t beat them join them. After doing this for the first time I realised, “wait a minute, this makes sense”. This discovery made me realise that I was wrong to hold resentment against my fellow road users.

I have been beeped on account of using this lane to overtake and to merge with traffic. On one occasion I even saw a truck pull out to stop the late mergers. He blocked drivers who wanted to continue in the right hand lane because he decided that what we were doing was unfair. In what world does it make sense not to use this lane and utilise what it was designed for?

Then, when you do get to the merge point you meet the enraged drivers who really put the foot down to close the one metre gap between their car and the one in front – they just won’t let people merge. Thankfully not many drivers do this, but the minority is noticeable.

This morning I contacted a colleague of mine, Tony Toner of the IAMI (Institute of Advanced Motorists of Ireland), regarding the issue. While Tony would agree with the late merge method, his advice is that courtesy and safety should be the two most important things when it comes to merging. The late merge system, also known as the zipper system, should merge together like a zip, but that's clearly not how road users here use it.

Mr Toner said that he has noticed how people sometimes use their cars like rams to make sure somebody else doesn't get in - no matter what side of the merge you are coming in at, it is neither courteous nor safe. "Merging traffic should know that their indicator gives them no legal entitlement to enter. With a sprinkling of courtesy and a modicum of prudence, a lot of the angst and road rage can be totally avoided. This thoughtless and aggressive behaviour must stop" said Mr Toner, "we all use the roads together, and safety is key".

It’s not just on the N11 where this happens. Take for example when there is road-works on a dual carriageway – generally you get a warning at least two kilometres before you get to the red cones that gradually changes two lanes into one. I remember driving once from Dublin to Belfast and my passenger at the time gave out to me for not going into the left lane like everybody else two kilometres before the road works. At that point I asked him how it made any sense for an entire lane to be empty. He didn’t reply. I think he might have seen some sense in what I said.

Some governments promote what I’m saying here. They push the late merge method where drivers should use both lanes until the merge points. People who merge early get annoyed an irritated about seeing people carry on in the right hand lane. They feel that those who continue in the other lane are cheating or skipping the queue. This system has been designed to reduce queue lengths and increase safety.

Now I’m pretty sure that some of you may completely disagree with my opinion on this issue. If you disagree with me, please explain why a person can’t use the right hand other lane to overtake safely and merge where the architects of this road intended people to merge.