When merging onto a highway, what should you check for?

When merging onto a highway, checking for traffic speed and distance is crucial for a safe merge. This allows you to assess how fast other vehicles are traveling and how much space you have to enter the lane. Understanding the speed of traffic helps you match your own speed to that of the vehicles already on the highway, reducing the risk of accidents caused by sudden braking or erratic movements. Additionally, evaluating the distance between your vehicle and other cars ensures that you can safely merge without cutting off another driver or leaving insufficient space, which could lead to collisions.

While it's important to be aware of pedestrians, weather conditions, and road construction, these factors are less critical when specifically focusing on merging safely onto a highway. A pedestrian presence would typically not be an issue on high-speed roadways, weather conditions might impact driving overall but are less relevant to the immediate action of merging, and road construction scenarios would usually prompt diversions rather than straightforward merges onto highways.