For example, say you’re wanting to take the next right turn, and the lane becomes a combined bus lane + right turn lane not very far ahead of you. If you don’t see a bus and you pull into the lane a bit early you have an extremely good chance of making it to the combined section before a bus comes.
This type of scenario potentially pairs badly with only enforcing the last car in the queue when the bus arrives. As soon as the car at the end of the line switches to the bus lane, everyone in the queue ahead of them is suddenly incentivized to abruptly jump into the bus lane ahead of them. Even setting aside the safety hazards of encouraging drivers to cut each other off, this obstructs the person who wants to make a right turn (particularly relevant if they’re in a situation where they were expecting to make a right on red in order to clear the lane), such that the person who made a sensible decision will potentially be punished for the actions of people who made less sensible decisions.
I agree that this is a risk, and it’s possible that it’s enough that this is a bad idea. I’m especially worried about very long stretches where you can see that a car is coming along, and so have plenty of time to pull out in front of it.
But I see two main mitigations:
Cutting other drivers off would still be a traffic violation and people don’t want to cause accidents, so I don’t think we get the worst behavior of sudden lane switching.
People might only use these lanes close enough to when they know that they are going to be getting out of them that they won’t people vulnerable to other people getting in front of them.
This type of scenario potentially pairs badly with only enforcing the last car in the queue when the bus arrives. As soon as the car at the end of the line switches to the bus lane, everyone in the queue ahead of them is suddenly incentivized to abruptly jump into the bus lane ahead of them. Even setting aside the safety hazards of encouraging drivers to cut each other off, this obstructs the person who wants to make a right turn (particularly relevant if they’re in a situation where they were expecting to make a right on red in order to clear the lane), such that the person who made a sensible decision will potentially be punished for the actions of people who made less sensible decisions.
I agree that this is a risk, and it’s possible that it’s enough that this is a bad idea. I’m especially worried about very long stretches where you can see that a car is coming along, and so have plenty of time to pull out in front of it.
But I see two main mitigations:
Cutting other drivers off would still be a traffic violation and people don’t want to cause accidents, so I don’t think we get the worst behavior of sudden lane switching.
People might only use these lanes close enough to when they know that they are going to be getting out of them that they won’t people vulnerable to other people getting in front of them.