It won't surprise motorists who regularly endure the crawl along one of Sydney's most congested roads near Olympic Park.
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But the most notorious spot in the state for motorists to merge into other traffic is only several hundred metres from what has already been dubbed Sydney's worst roundabout.
The intersection of Homebush Bay Drive and the M4 motorway has claimed top spot on the list of merge locations on NSW roads where vehicle collisions most frequently occur.
In fact, the top four spots for collisions from vehicles merging are located along the M4, data of claims from NRMA Insurance shows.
After Homebush Bay Drive, the second worst is where the M4 connects with Parramatta Road at Parramatta, followed by the Cumberland Highway at Wentworthville and Silverwater Road.
Wentworth Point resident Bronwyn Evans said she was not at all surprised that the intersection of Homebush Bay Drive and the M4 featured at the top of the list.
"That is a bit of a disaster [area]. People get frustrated and react quickly. When you react quickly, you might not necessarily react in the right way," she said.
Ms Evans, who is president of the resident lobby group Wentworth Point Community Central, said a combination of the connection to the M4, and the nearby roundabout at the intersection of Australia Avenue, Homebush Bay Drive and Underwood Road, made for "quite a mess".
She expects some relief for motorists from the widening of the M4 and a new $140 million access ramp.
As part of as part of the $16.8 billion WestConnex motorway project, the widening of the M4 to four lanes in each direction from Church Street, Parramatta, to Homebush Bay Drive is due to be completed next year.
But Ms Evans warned that transport infrastructure was still lagging behind an expected surge in residents at the Olympic Park precinct over the next decade to as many as 50,000.
"The government is very happy ... to put in more and more apartments but they are not providing the infrastructure for people to leave to go to work and come home," she said.
NRMA Insurance research head Robert McDonald said the Homebush Bay Drive intersection with the M4 was not only one of the busiest routes for vehicles heading west but it also had to handle traffic from Flemington Markets, the nearby DFO factory outlet and Olympic Park.
The NRMA's insurance claims data shows it records an average of 35 collisions annually where Homebush Bay Drive connects with the M4, followed by 33 where the Parramatta Road links with the same motorway.
Intersections with the M4 featured prominently in the top 10 mainly because of traffic volumes, he said.
One spot in Sydney's CBD makes the top 10 of merge locations where collisions occur most often. That is a short stretch of Bridge Street between George and Macquarie streets, which Mr McDonald said was a result of a high volume of vehicles from the Harbour Bridge and complicated spots to merge across the latter two streets.
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An NRMA survey showed 35 per cent of drivers sometimes or never allow other drivers to merge.
Roads Minister Duncan Gay said a $400 million "smart motorway" project for the M4 would reduce crash rates by up to 30 per cent by 2020, while entry ramp signals would smooth the flow of traffic onto the motorway and allow safer merging.
"With or without this clever equipment, it's up to drivers themselves to exercise safety and consideration when merging with other traffic – it's not rocket science," he said.
