Merge left ahead

What it means

This sign tells you that traffic from an on-ramp, a joining road or a lane drop will enter your roadway ahead and that the combined flow must merge toward the left. It is placed early enough for you to adjust speed, choose a lane and create space for the joining traffic rather than meeting it as a surprise. Merging works as a co-operative manoeuvre: neither stream has unlimited priority in practice, and the crash pattern the sign prevents is the last-second side-by-side arrival at the same gap.

How it gets misread

Drivers sometimes read the sign as instructing them to change lanes immediately, which is neither necessary nor always wise. Others assume the joining traffic must always yield completely, treating gaps as theirs by right rather than by co-operation.

What to do

Scan the joining lane early and pick up individual vehicles rather than treating it as a mass. Hold a steady, predictable speed, adjust to open a gap for a joining vehicle when you can do so smoothly, and avoid camping beside another vehicle through the merge area. If you are the joining traffic, match speed with the road you are joining and fit the gap you found, not the one you hoped for.

Practise this rule

• Merging Onto an Interstate: Use the Full Ramp

  You are merging onto an interstate using the acceleration lane. What should you be doing along that lane?

More warning signs

• Lane ends →
• Divided highway ends →

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