A woman that works for me crashed her car at the weekend. She told me it was the other guys fault.

"I didn't see him but he saw me. I turned left at the roundabout and the idiot was coming round the roundabout and didn't stop - just drove into me." To top that it was lashing down and she made passing comment that the other guy had his lights on so should have seen her; she didn't have hers on so shouldn't have been expected to see him.

I looked at the pom next to me who looked back at me, both with jaws open. She has been driving here for 26 years and amazingly it was her first ever accident.

They don't understand roundabouts - not enough of them hre, maybe thats the problem! Aussies will either all dive onto the roundabout at once, or will all ist at the entrance roads, staring at each other

I'm surprised she was driving with it lashing down - many Aussies won't drive in the rain. For some of them the world stops - won't go shopping or anything. The Bloke surprised me one night by asking if we were cancelling a pub Expats meet - cos it was raining! Was surpried when I said the pub didn't have holes in the roof, so we'd still be gouing !!!

It used to be 1st on the roundy thingy that had right o way till like 91 :scared:

lol. Have to admit, I'd consider abandoning shopping if it was bucketing down. Why not? But a meet...

They call it a 'circle' over here, and the Americans are just as unable to use them as the Aussies. We have a rare example just around the corner from our house, and many is the time that I see people driving around it the wrong way then struggling to come off at the right place because of the way the pavements are shaped...more often than not the end up just driving over the grass in their gass guzzlers, or exiting on the wrong side of the road with a frown (a bigger frown when you are sitting on that side of the road patiently waiting for them to get out of the way so that you can use the roundabout at it was intended)

Not noticed a problem at roundabouts - no different from people in the UK as far as I can see but what does confuse me is at our local shopping centre. There's a t junction type layout going into the car park and everyone seems to either give way to the left or wait until the other two roads have emptied , none of it makes sense, but because everyone does it, I do too works fine but frankly, it's wrong No one else seems confused by it though so perhaps it's m...... nah that can't be right

I think it's because they don't have or seem to use a 'give way to the right' rule. Seems to be whoever arrives first gets to go first. Go figure.

we noticed that with the rain.....people will actually pull over to the side of the road and wait for it to stop

In 22 years of living in oz ive never noticed that... maybe they were reading a map?

It doesn't surprise me that so many people don't understand road rules. There are so many overseas-born motorists who only have to do a written test to drive on the roads in Oz. I'm not talking about Poms but all the other migrants from the 4 corners of the world, some who've never even seen a roundabout before and have been granted a licence without having been shown how to use one.

My sister used to do all the written driving tests for her town in NW Vic. There is a high [non-European] migrant population, many of whom don't even speak English. She used to have to translate or explain the questions to them - they came from places like Iran, Afghanistan, Vietnam - and a lot of them only had experience of driving on dirt roads and not in urban areas. They can't even read the road signs!

Of course this doesn't excuse the entire population!

If its any comfort either do Canadians!

well, iam petrified of driving in aus if they cant get round abouts, coz neither can I. I've only been driving 1 year, 116 lessons 2 failed tests passed on third because he felt sorry for me and iam still nervous. Its only the last 2 months i've started driving hubby's car and getting comfortable with my local roads. I dont even drive to glasgow city centre, all a bit much for me and now i have to consider the aussie's dont understand gee way to the right, iam snookered. :scared:


sarah-jayne

This explains why Aussies round here, slow down to a virtual halt or stop at roundabouts even when there is nothing obviously coming. Frustrating when you are in a hurry though.

Comparing where I live now (Mornington Peninsula) with where I used to live (London), the drivers here* are better on roundabouts. They tend to approach the roundabout in the correct lane and they tend to indicate properly. Unlike London where people would often use the wrong lane to enter the roundabout and where the indication was either non-existent or completely wrong (why do so many people in the UK indicate left when then they are going straight across the roundabout). I agree that the Aussies tend to be a bit more cautious entering roundabouts but I don't see this as a bad thing.

* By here I mean my locality not the whole of Australia.

Ah yes, the Armadale Rotary!!

It would be interesting to see how a 4 way stop would work here instead of a roundabout.

For the aussie residents, a 4 way stop is a junction with 4 roads feeding in all with a stop sign. You literally take your turn to move away. When you rock up at the junction you have to try and remember who arrived before and after you. Can you imagine that working in Australia, NOT.