Re: Driving in Australia
 

:thumbsup:

Yep, point taken. :) Wasn't trying to nitpick (how do you spell that? :confused:) just thought it worth a mention as I think it's particularly scary practice. IMHO :)

Re: Driving in Australia
 

The big one that comes to mind is merging onto freeways. If you're used to driving in Canada, many on-ramps have a yield sign or if it's not actually there, you're still supposed to merge carefully with the traffic and unofficially it's always a case of "whoa, fight your way onto the freeway because no one wants to give you an inch of space." Here, traffic on the freeway is supposed to give way if any portion of your car is ahead of theirs. That would never happen back in Canada. I snicker thinking about it.

And yes, no leeway for speeding. In Alberta, they'd often let you get at least 10km/h over the limit before ticketing. We received one here for 6 km/h over, which I thought was a bit ridiculous.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

I reckon the lower limits for P platers isn't a good idea. (I think they do something similar in NSW as well). As well as holding up regular traffic it probably exacerbates the disdain from other drivers.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

I think that's one of those made up rules or a popular misunderstanding. You only get priority from being ahead if there is no lane marking in which case it's a zip merge. Certainly on the freeways here in Vic there are dotted lines and the car crossing the dotted line is supposed to give way.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

Yeah, I think it's also gets misunderstood as all cars merging get right-of-way which is not how it's written:

http://www.transport.wa.gov.au/media...eSafePart3.pdf

No dotted lines from the merge lane onto the freeway as I can see, but I suppose it's different from state to state.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

Sounds like it. Will have to be careful if I head out west. :D

PS: Just had a look on google maps and it looks like you use zip merge out there and here we have dotted lane separators. So definitely an interstate difference.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

Same here.

Such a good one. I believe it's actually the law in the UK as well but no one abides by it and the police don't enforce it. Had totally forgotten when we went back and slightly freaked when the driver shot across the road and parked the wrong way. :lol:

They don't do that here thankfully but because we're so close to the border, when we were teaching First Born, we'd often drive over the border clocking up the hours. We were never sure of which rules to follow but suddenly dropping seemed dangerous to me. :unsure:

Re: Driving in Australia
 

Likewise, good to know for when I go visit Victoria!

Hey, maybe this explains some of the mishaps...interstate drivers in rental cars...I mean, I'd cut an out-of-state plate some slack, but I imagine a lot more people fly and hire a car rather than do the scenic Nullarbor route.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

I think the parking against traffic thing in the UK depends on day/night and how well the area is lit. I think it's okay to park against the flow in a town but not out of town at night. Pretty much because people can't see your reflectors. (My mum was told off for this once.) It does seem to wind up a lot of people but I can see why it's allowed over there and not over here.

We thankfully don't have the slow P platers as well. I bet nobody has a clear idea of what's supposed to happen when they cross borders. I presume it's a restriction on the licence which could lead to the case where a Vic P plater can drive at 110kph on a Vic freeway but a NSW P plater should stick to 80. :blink:

Re: Driving in Australia
 

It's 100k in South Australia :)


http://www.dtei.sa.gov.au/roadsafety...s/speed_limits

Re: Driving in Australia
 

Okay, my apologies. This has changed recently. My step-daughter is on P plates and lives in SA.

On L plates she couldn't do more than 80. Now, on Ps she can do 100 but is still limited to 100 if the speed limit is 110.

This really is one area of law that needs to be covered by federal law I reckon.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

It got lost along the way in the thread MP but they were talking about u-turns at traffic lights....can't do them in qld unless signed....in normal breaks in the road you can do them unless signed that you can't.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

I don't think the residents of Bott st would agree with you :)

Re: Driving in Australia
 

Making the default highway speed limits consistent would be cool. 110kph in SA and 100kph in Vic. When you cross the border in some places there's nothing to say the speed limit has changed. Unfortunately they would probably make it consistent on the lower limit.

Re: Driving in Australia
 

They don't. I got on to both NSW and QLD transport as well as our local beat policeman and none of them knew. QLD transport said she was a QLD learner so went by the rules of QLD, NSW said she was on NSW ground so followed their rules and the copper said something along the lines of 'bugger no one's asked me that before and I don't know. :lol::rolleyes: We figured that if she got stopped and fined, we'd go to QLD Transport and get them to cancel it.;)