I've debated that sort of thing several times with my dad. He argues that if everyone waited until the last possible point to merge, things would be better, because there'd only be one point of congestion. I.e., nobody could "cut" the line because everyone would be merging at the end, instead of the people in the slow lane being slowed down not just by people merging in ahead of time but also by people merging at the last possible second.
I can sort of see his point, but the downside to me seems to be that if you wait until the very end, and don't get to merge in cleanly, you have to slam on the brakes, and nothing kills traffic like someone having to merge in from a complete stop. So my tentative position is that it would be best if everyone merged exactly as soon as they could do so without significantly slowing down (speeding up to merge seems like it would be a good thing, in comparison?). But good luck with that, heh.
I can sort of see his point, but the downside to me seems to be that if you wait until the very end, and don't get to merge in cleanly, you have to slam on the brakes, and nothing kills traffic like someone having to merge in from a complete stop. So my tentative position is that it would be best if everyone merged exactly as soon as they could do so without significantly slowing down (speeding up to merge seems like it would be a good thing, in comparison?). But good luck with that, heh.