Whenever I see that my lane is about to run out, I slow down to the speed of the other lane. I will hog the closing lane for 500 feet if possible, to allow people to safely merge in instead of racing to the front and slowing everybody down. I've sat beside semi rigs for quite some time for this reason, and they always let me in right in front of them when we actually get to the line. Usually I get a friendly wave too.

About 5% of drivers try to cut off the line by racing ahead in the closing lane, and without that 5%, the rest of us would get where we are going a whole lot quicker. Usually the conditions allow graceful merging with a bit of a slowdown, but the jerks that cut to the front cause backups.