Imagine driving on the highway when a lane is closed for road construction. When would you merge into another lane? Would you merge when there’s a sign warning you that construction is happening up ahead, or would you wait until the point where the cones completely block off the lane forcing you to merge into another lane?

In this story, one driver chose the second option, and he’s pretty frustrated about the way several truckers reacted when he tried to merge. Their reaction makes him wonder if he really did do something wrong.

Technically, he didn’t do anything wrong, but I personally would’ve merged earlier if everyone else was merging earlier.

Keep reading for all the details.

AITA for using a lane on the highway (in a car) until I was forced over to another lane by construction? (USA)

Happened last week while I was on a cross-country trip. I’ll do my best to visually describe it.

Picture 3 lanes, and construction is happening in the left lane, but a little ways up ahead, so I’m not even in the construction zone yet. However all 3 lanes are moving between very slow and dead stopped.

Here in the US they’ll put signs that say “Left lane closed 1000ft ahead” and another one at 500ft, and then they’ll put traffic cones across the lane at a diagonal angle until it’s impossible to use the lane.

Everyone decided to merge except OP.

I’m in the left lane and we slowly pass the 1000ft sign. Almost everyone in front of me in the left lane starts merging at this point.

I notice that the car in front of me is almost merged into the middle lane all the way and that the lane is empty until you get to the traffic cones, which are ~900ft away or so.

Now as someone who’s lived in large cities the past 15yrs, everyone usually goes all the way to the cones before merging, that’s just what happens. So I take the opportunity to do this, and as I’m starting to drive by, a semi-truck suddenly juts out halfway into my lane in an attempt to block me.

I stop and then go around him because he kinda had to get back in his lane fully and also there was plenty of room on the shoulder, but I didn’t even have to leave the lane at all really.

When he was finally ready to merge, it wasn’t easy.

I continue on my way and am coming up on the cones getting ready to merge when another semi-truck pulls out and completely cuts me off. So the front of his truck is basically touching the first or second cone and the back of his truck is in the middle lane.

I slam the brakes and am very annoyed, but there’s nothing I can do so I start pulling into the middle lane behind him.

BUT a freaking 3rd semi-truck, who is directly behind the one that just cut me off, also freaking cuts me off and gets within like 2in of the other semi-truck so that I can’t merge.

Finally, the car behind that last semi-truck lets me in because there’s nowhere else to go, and less than a minute later I’m passing both of those semi-trucks because traffic started going more than 10mph.

He isn’t sure what the truckers were thinking.

I’ve always been a fan of truckers and have done my best to be aware of what they’re doing on the road, but what the heck?

I understand if you don’t like what I’m doing, but it was legal and there was a huge amount of unused lane that I thought everyone should be using and just merging once they got to the cones, you know like a zipper.

What were these guys thinking? “Let’s make this guy pass us in a few minutes when traffic opens up instead of right now because….uh….reasons.” Are you really stupid enough to risk causing an accident that would be your fault because you don’t like that I’m about to pass you using a completely open and legal lane?

I understand people passing you when you’re at a dead stop makes you think “What a jerk” but I feel like these guys were just sticking together as truckers instead of using their brains.

If everyone else zippered in at an earlier point, I can understand why the truckers were annoyed, but was it wrong for them to almost cause an accident?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who reported some missionaries after frustration over lack of parking boils over.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say.

Are we sure he wasn’t being one of those people who cuts ahead and flies by everyone else?

This is a good point. I think it was more like they prevented him from merging.

This person doesn’t think he did anything wrong.

But this person thinks he should’ve merged earlier.

I don’t think of those signs saying a lane is closing ahead as something to ignore. To me, and most drivers, those signs mean you’re supposed to merge.

I can understand why the truckers prevented him from merging. He may think of it as the truckers cutting him off, but really, they just prevented him from cutting them off.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who got creative with his parking after his neighbors started using his extra spot without asking.