So the car next to you drifted into your lane and just about ran you into a stobie pole? Dont get angry. Simply beep, make eye contact and return the same slack-jawed expression that youre likely to receive.

Daily driving seems to be a series of white-knuckle rides and near misses that its barely worth talking about.

I must admit I am pleasantly suprised to discover that my memory of driving standards in the UK was (and is) correct. They are far more courteous and competent. I guess driving manual cars on crowded roads covered in black ice ensures a Darwinean process.

On the other hand, the roads are now an over governed nightmare of road signs and speed limits. The A52 near me is limited to 50/40/30 mph, and in the 12 miles to derby there are hundreds of signs warning me of deer, horses, cattle, ufo's and god knows what else. Talk about nanny state!

for you, no problem.

http://www.thefreesociety.org/Articl...-1-nanny-state

"There is a PhD thesis waiting to be written some day about how Australia came to be the world’s number one nanny state; how a country that was once renowned for rugged individualism capitulated to puritanism with barely a whimper.

The Australians were recently in the news after making the decision to wrap cigarettes in olive coloured plain packages. With tangible patriotic pride, campaigners claimed this as a world first, and so it is, but it only scratches the surface of the plans Australia’s public health lobby have in store.

Last week, the Preventative Health Taskforce published a report which launched a “crackdown” (their word) on drinking, smoking and the eating of “energy-dense, nutrient poor” food). This report made 122 recommendations, called for twenty-six new laws and proposed establishing seven new agencies to change the behaviour of Australians . To take just a few examples related to tobacco, they called for the price of 30 cigarettes to rise to “at least $20” (£13) by 2013, for a ban on duty free sales, a ban on vending machines and a ban on smoking in a host of places including multi-unit apartments, private vehicles and “outdoors where people gather or move in close proximity.” They even contemplate a ban on filters (?!) and the prohibition of additives that enhance the palatability of cigarettes.

As in so many countries, Australia’s anti-smoking campaign has acted as a Trojan horse in the effort to fundamentally change the relationship between citizen and state. By no means does it end with tobacco. The Taskforce also wants to ban drinks advertising during programmes that are watched by people under 25 – a category so broad as to include virtually everything – and calls for graphic warnings similar to those now found on cigarette packs to be put on bottles of beer. It also wants the government to establish “appropriate portion sizes” for meals, to tax food that is deemed unhealthy and to hand out cash bonuses to those who meet the state’s criteria of a healthy lifestyle.

Coming on the back of a tobacco display ban and the aforementioned plain packaging ruse, it is no wonder that a recent survey found that 55% of Australians believe their country has become a nanny state (3). An ever greater majority – 73% – think the government is too busy micromanaging people’s lives to address important issues.

...

It is the professed concern for the well-being of children that props up so much authoritarian legislation in both hemispheres. This does not just apply to smoking, nor even health issues in general. Australia has an unenviable record of Internet censorship, for example, and a national website filter has been proposed to protect children from pornography and gambling. As the Dick Puddlecote blog showed recently, more video games are banned Down Under than in dictatorial China. And so if you, as an Australian adult, want to exercise your right to gamble and play violent video games, that’s just too bad. The rights of some hypothetical teenager to enjoy freedom from grown up pursuits trump your own rights to pursue them.

There is something deeply unsavoury about exploiting people’s natural concern for children as a means of passing illiberal legislation. Plans are afoot in Australia to ban alcoholic energy drinks because, it is claimed, some underage drinkers like them. Campaigners are particularly worried about the “colourful packaging” these drinks come in; an ominous statement from the land of plain packaging. Banning a concoction that any fool with access to alcohol and Red Bull can make themselves would be a futile exercise in gesture politics. The practical failure of such policies is so routine as to be hardly worth mentioning. The much larger point is that a ban on these drinks punishes adults for the failure of government to enforce the laws that already exist"

I don't see a difference between the comments in that article and a sign indicating sheep on a main road, or a blanket 50 nph speed limit across the whole of the county.

I hate driving here.

It swings wildly between utter utter boredom one minute and heart stopping terror the next.

road deaths in Oz are 1.5 x higher than in the uk (3.6 per 100k v 5.2). for a country thats mostly empty space crisscrossed by arrow streight roads thats pretty impressive.

Apart from the lack of driving skill in general , a joking tollerance to drink driving amongst the general population and badly thought out road layouts i suspect the lack of car maintainance plays a big part in that little statistic.

letting kids with no insurance who've just passed their driving test in rear wheel drive , V6 engined cars with no requirement for an annual safety inspection is a recipe for disaster.

I 've become totally numb to the news headline that another teenager has wrapped his car round a tree ( cut to scattered wreackage of 15 year old commadore) .

I couldn't agree more. And would add that the police response to all this is to then target everyone with covert speeding operations all in the name of safety. Utterly ridiculous.

I have to admit, I find some of the driving over her annoying as f@@k. However compared to the drivers I used to come across in and around central belt of scotland before I left it isnt so bad.

Far too many people would drive up ur arse back home, even when we had snow/ice on the road, speed limits as always are just a guide or the good old I will drive at 50 in a 70 and then continue at 50 in the 30! Wouldnt give a shit about undertaking when you are trying to pull back into a lane after overtaking (which at least its legal to undertake here)

You leave a safe distance it is filled by some1 else and keeps happening, u r in the slow lane and a truck is coming up and u need to pull out people will speed up and block you off....so far I havnt found driving in Queensland that much worse than what I left behind in Scotland...apart from the idiots trying to make thier tyres spin....but then you had the boy racers back home....so its same shit different country...but at least its warm and sunny!

Do agree that the power of the cars and maintenance of them is scary over here...

the P plate restrictions are utter nonsence. they can drive a Golf R32 with 3.2 liters and over 200 hp but not a polo tsi with 105bhp.

Seriously? how come?

P platers can't drive anything with a turbo or a V8.

omg....glad i am not the only one here that thinks the driving here is atrocious....and dangerous as...
i live in VIC - and here the cars are not only 4litre V8;s with all the grunt through the arse end, they are mainly 20years old, with no air bags and no traction / abs etc...driven by kids who think they are winterburn or skaffe, and end up wrapped around a tree...
BUT worst of all - once you buy a car, with a well dodgy "roadworthy" - you can keep it for the rest of your life, and never get it tested...unless you want to sell it to some hapless "p" plater of course, then you get in touch with your "mates" - who issue another dodgy roadworthy...
AND - the same applies for trucks.....so next time tou look in your mirror, and all you can see is some f-wits Kenworth / mack / Western Star badge, towing up to 68te gross, just put you foot down or get out of his way - coz that motor might not have been tested for years...
BUT - go 3 kms over the speed limit and you are the worst driver on the planet....
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE.....

one last winge....remember there are a lot of asians here, and if any of you guys have been to china / indonesia / india / malaysia, they are really the worst drivers....

Yes they can in WA, there was some 17 yr old dude who wrapped an FPV round a lamp post the other week. As for the comments on road deaths being 1.5x that of the UK, you also have to take into account the differences in the dangers drivers face in Oz, ie very long open roads with nothing but wild animals and trees to hit at 110km an hour, there's practically nowhere like that in the UK barring motorways/dual carrigeways that are very well protected. Most driving in the UK you hardly ever go over 60 unless in between cities. They have one of the safest driving cultures in the world so any country's standards will look inferior - however when things go wrong they go very very wrong, take that big smash in the west country the other week.

They could go a long way by ensuring young men under 25 can drive nothing over 2L and without a turbo though, that would make a difference.

which states have the 120 hour rule for "L's"?
We have this in VIC...and its a farce....fraudulently completed by kids, aunts, uncles, ficticious rellies...etc..
As with so much here, nanny state, punitive laws, with little if no policing...
Having TAC / 3rd party insurance in the "Rego" is also a recipe for disaster, and the kid believes he is insured....so anyone can almost drive any car...

youth and power is not a good mix in any shape or form...but in a car, its lethal...

Theres idiots in the UK - but a combination of better roads, safer cars, better test and training system, and a lot of slower roads to learn your skills, results in a safer place...

BEWARE of TRUCKS though - trust me, i work in the industry, and there are as many "hoon" truckers, as there are car drivers...

Are you saying truckers have a problem with speed?