I read this a lot. Until you're in the USA and you're on an on-ramp that immediately merges. Then having < 5 seconds to 60 is nice for everybody's safety and comfort.
...just don't merge?
Something tells me with such a window to merge in you are probably looking into to mirrors and not accurately estimating the distance of the car from you either.
Also don't rely on this because the road condition is not going to guarantee you get up to the needed speed in time(cold tires or undesirable road surface conditions). You don't need a sub 5 second car to safely merge.
Eh, sometimes thats not an option if the an onramp doesn't create a new lane.
I've lived and driven in California, Western Europe and New Zealand. Many (not all) California onramps come from tight cloverleafs or they are metered with stop lights, so you have to accelerate quickly to avoid going into the stopping lane (which will be covered in gravel, if it even exists). I never had this problem elsewhere.
Looks like you have plenty road to get up to speed there or slow down if you need to before merging but don't have a lot of area to merge.
I drive in NYC. Some of our merge lanes are pretty short also...if you can't merge you stop and wait...yes you're supposed to yield and not stop but guess what, if you simply can't merge what are you going to do run into a vehicle?
