On the roundabout

[KeaauRich]

With all due respect to Hot, I'm in agreement with Greg on the "alternating" approach at the Keaau bottleneck. When entering a freeway, one lane is increasing speed to join another lane already traveling at a higher speed. The faster lane clearly has a right of way. At the bottleneck, on the other hand, there are two lanes that have been traveling the same speed all the way from Route 11 that now need to consolidate when the right lane disappears (hence the need to merge to the left...). Under the highway merge philosophy, at the bottleneck the left lane would continue at full speed and the right lane would slow until enough gaps appeared for individual cars to merge wherever they could (thus increasing the right lane congestion further back towards Hilo). Aggressive or timid drivers in either lane would cause disruptions and slowdowns for other drivers behind them. Under the alternating approach, both lanes travel at consistent speeds, and where the right lane disappears, the traffic in that lane merges to the left to join the continuing single lane. Both lanes slow slightly to allow an orderly consolidation of traffic and traffic flows smoothly. In other words, "Merge Left" doesn't mean the left lane has the right of way, it simply means that at the combining point, traffic in the right lane needs to move to the left, lest they run over the guy selling fish (or politicians at election time).