Dear East Texas Drivers: The Merge Lane, Learn To Love It

The photo above is the perfect visual representation of what its like to drive in East Texas. We all know that with progress comes growing pains including increased traffic as more folks are discovering what a great place East Texas is but there's still a bunch of yall who don't understand how YOU can do your part to make driving easier for us all by utilizing a section of roadway that seems troublesome for yall.

The merge lane. If you're still not understanding what I mean, let me share another photo so we can be unequivocally clear.

Okay, now are we clear? The merge lane is cause of A LOT of drama on East Texas because some of yall continue to not understand its purpose.

We've been there before, especially in Tyler coming off Old Jacksonville Road as you try to merge onto Loop 323 next to the Brookshire's Warehouse. Every damn day, some one will STOP at the white lines where the merge lane starts and instead of keeping themselves moving and merging into traffic, they WAIT to see if they go from 0 to 40 into oncoming traffic.

The purpose of this lane is for you to SAFELY MERGE into traffic without slowing the everyone else down. In the photo above you see two drivers that understand this concept. You stay MOVING in the MERGE LANE until you can find a point to safely merge into traffic.

But what do most of yall do when this lane approaches? STOP dead in your tracks and attempt to UNSAFELY merge into traffic without using the lane. This is a HORRIBLE idea and DANGEROUS and YOU ARE HOLDING UP TRAFFIC for the rest of us who KNOW what its used for.

Folks, learn to love and use the merge lanes in East Texas. Its there for a reason and would be a really big help. Thank you.