Majj

Are the roads wide and spacious like the USA/Canada or are they narrow and dingy like ours in the UK?

Also what about the condition, full of potholes or reasonable?

Megalania

Wide with narrow bits, spacious with cramped bits, straight with crooked bits, potholed with un-potholed bits, dirty with non-dirty bits.

Fuzzy Duck

Narrow and dingy I am afraid. If you ever have the pleasure of driving on the Ipswich Motorway you will see what I mean.

Muzza04

Mostly orange/red and dusty. You'll need a robust vehicle

The Bloke

Traffic accident today, closed all three lanes of the Gympie Arterial at Carseldine just before peak-hour. Most roads initially poorly planned years ago with no thought for growth. Give Melbourne it's due, they have better infrastructure and plannng from what I've seen recently.
We pay huge rego and fines but nothing seems to go back into the roads to make them better and safer.

tonyk38

Australia is as big as Europe, so unsurprisingly, the roads vary from Multi-laned freeways to tracks between the sand dunes in the Gibson Desert.

Generally, suburban roads are much wider than the UK. Main roads tend to be multi-lane and the condition of most of them is absolutely fine.

There are freeways in, and leading out of the main cities, but only really one really long-distance one which runs between Sydney and Melb'n, and even that has gaps in parts of NSW.

However, the traffic in some cities is truly horrendous, especially after accidents, notably Sydney; and I would agree with comments on Queensland's roads, which speak for themselves...

JackTheLad

And watch out for two or three lane lane roads with crazy low speed limits. In the UK if your on a 3 lane road, you kind of assume its 70 mph. They have 3 lane roads in the suburbs of Brisbane with 50km\h speed limits...
And speed cameras

Cheers,
JTL

ozzieeagle

The main route between, Brisbane and Melbourne, would probably be the Newell Highway, I've been on that a few times. It reminds me a lot of the Old A5 in England. Except the Newell is heaps quieter, and has even more variations than the A5 (or wattling way as it was called by the romans). The Newell has more changes than a woman with really Bad PMT

NJJ

Never mind all that, the things you've most got to look out for are the local drivers (impatient, VERY impatient at that) e.g. nobody lets anybody else in like they do in the UK, and if you wave at another motorist to let them through they look at you like you have 3 heads. The other thing is the revenue hungry speed cameras either permanant or mobile (operated by the rozzers). No lines in road like in UK where the cameras are and you will get $120 fine (here in VIC at least) for doing as little as 3km/h over the speed limit. The thing that's unfair about this is that the law states speedometers in cars should be accurate to within 10% of the speed limit, yet if you are doing 84km/h in an 80km/h zone you will get fined, even if your speedo reads 80km/h and is working within the legal limits.

Megalania

Don't confuse 'em - give way to the right; don't wave at 'em use turning signals. Pull the other two in. Read the traffic signs, calibrate your speedo, get cruise control. No point complaining about the darkness, turn on your headlights.

NJJ

"And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right?...Am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

chocaholic

The roads in suburbia tend to be wide IMO. The closer you get to the inner city the narrower they get - the wing mirrors of those 4WDs are virtually touching each other. I thought the road between Sydney and Bris. was really good. The only thing is....when there's been a lot of rain - these sink holes (potholes) appear - so you have to keep an eye out for those.