Meanwhile, In n Out serves a better burger, for less money, paying their workers $19+/hr.

This does not address my point at all. I agreed that your suggestion would not necessarily negatively impact the total throughput on your route.

My point was that your route does not exist in a vacuum and the utility of the open lane may not be obvious without having the same information available as the traffic engineers who designed the closure.

What you’re missing is that the “closing lane” is often designed to be utilized to prevent traffic from backing up into another traffic control device.

While you’re “matching speed” with the open lane that’s hardly moving- traffic has now backed up into an intersection and caused gridlock on cross streets for miles behind you.

So while “total throughput” on YOUR journey has remained the same you may be causing chaos to the roads around you.

Your best bet is to just assume the traffic engineers who designed the closure know better than you.

I did that for a while but eventually I bent the rod, slightly, and the consistency went to shit. Make sure you keep that drill level!