The other day, I was about to drive into a tunnel and I needed to get into the left lane. There was a gap in the lane in the left where I could merge into. So I turned on my turn signal to initiate the merging process. As soon as my blinkers turned on, the car behind the spot in the left lane I was trying to get into sped up to close the gap.

This kinda sucks. But like, I understand. It was busy traffic. The line was moving slow. But. This is a scenario that basically incentivizes people to not want to use their blinkers. There was more than enough time and room for me to slide into the left lane without causing much of a disturbance. Had I not turned on my blinkers, I would have been able to get into the left lane much faster. Instead, I had to wait until the next car that was generous enough to notice my turn signal and actually slow down to let me merge.

I feel like there are a lot of traffic rules that are meant to achieve one effect but end up not working since people care more about their own interests. Like for example, yellow lights are meant to warn people of an incoming red light so that they may ideally slow down and stop in time. But much more often the reality is that people treat the yellow light as a “time to speed up” signal.

I don’t think there’s really a good solutions to these problems. Because the traffic rules themselves are outlined in a reasonable way. And in all cases, people who break the rules are able to exploit those who don’t.