Originally Posted by Bekologist
FORCING a car to slow down
When merging I never
force a car to slow. I request the driver of the car to slow to let me merge. That is very different, the former is risky relying on a driver to react to ones sudden presence in front of them vs. first communicating to the driver that one desires to be in front of them and then getting a response (slowing usually) indicating that they will let you merge in front of them.
Now of course there is a grey area of if they are slowing because they are cautious and think you may merge in front of them even if they'd rather you didn't vs. they are happily letting you merge, but in either case you are not forcing anything and only merging after you have driver response to your indication that you are merging.
Al