teambwr47

I know plenty here seem worried about NZ driving and virtually every incident involving serious injury or death makes the national news but i heard tonight from a friend in the UK that an ex work colleague who was a real good guy got killed a few days ago while cycling, by a car turning into a side road that just took him out. The collision didn't even register with the woman driving as she carried on for half the street with him under the car....

No relevance to a BE forum sorry.............other than it can happen anywhere.......sad day.

The person i was talking to has dealt with a number of fatal RTC's as an accident investigator over the past two weeks including the one where our friend was killed and most including the one mentioned never made the press at all which is very different to here. Thats just one police area, the sames happening all over the UK every week.

Lets hope NZ is slightly safer than the UK roads even if its just because theres less people on the roads......take care out there!!!

richyandkat

I'm getting worried about driving in NZ, is it really that bad??

What are they main differences to the UK??

happynz

I can't say anything about the UK driving experience as I haven't been there, but here is what I see as some of the problems here on New Zealand's roads:

Aggro teens behind the wheel,
The Kiwi reluctance to slow down,
Drink driving,
Inattention.

There is more, but that's what comes to mind.

Bellasmum

There are some interesting stats here on road deaths in NZ. You would have to consider population figures to ascertain which roads are safer ...

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/toll.html

Ash1

Hey,

Don`t get too worried. It`s just one of those things that you notice when you move to a foreign country. It`s not the same as the UK all though there are some bad drivers there too. For one thing here, they aren`t very courteous drivers , if you let them out of a junction or flash at them to let them go first they tend to look at you as if you`ve gone mad. Also , I`m not sure that they have grasped the concept of a roundabout, some of them looking left and right and sitting in the left hand lane and then turning right.Having said all of that, there are plenty of other countries in the world that i have driven in and been more concerned. I haven`t felt in any kind of danger here, yet.
Hope that helps some of your concerns.
Ash

garryhg

the one thing that i found different is that anything goes here,

expect the unexpected and you will be fine....

i'm not a confident driver and i manage fine on the roads...what i found is there is a lot less road rage here,people cut in front of you,its accepted hereback home people take it personally and get too stressed with it

its not that bad

dlmckay

Defensive driving

If you always expect the people in front and behind you to do something idiotic, then you'll be fine!

Jude J

Sorry to hear about your friend niseysoh
I was almost taken out by an ignorant driver when I used to ride my bike to work in UK. He was driving a convertible BMW and if my brakes hadn't worked I could have ended up somersaulting over his boot and sitting on the back seat.

sammymac

Here! Here!

Defensive driving wherever you are.

And don't get wound up by the idiots.

nero

People seem fairly chilled and I love the fact that no one uses their car horn -very different to London

As for driving standards as already stated if you drive sensibly and keep an eye out for the unexpected which I always had to do at home you should be fine.

One thing I have noticed is that more people seem to drive round when it is dark with no lights on - not sure if that is an Auckland or NZ thing

Joshlin

would agree with the defensive driving concept, always expect the guy waiting in the junction to wait until you are nearly there and then pull out. i tend to find that the general road positioning in the main dreadful also.loads of cars on the school run wait to turn right out of a side road and hog the centre/left side so you cant get past if you want to go left. as said before, dont get wound up and you'll be right.
watch out for pedestrian crossings also-we have one outside the garage i work at in a relatively small village. school kids can be already crossing and cars will still go through it. we have had a few near misses so to speak, and plenty of rear enders due to people not paying attention to what is going on in front of them (pity we are not a panel shop).
having said that i have driven in far worse places than NZ for sure.

Lee

mickey_d

You don't have to put your lights on until 1/2 hour after sunset & don't need them on up to 1/2 hour before sunrise according to the driving code

Obviously when it's very cloudy & rainy this rule is a bit dodgy.

Noticed they don't like using lights in fog as well.

karonious

I was very surprised to realise our car doesn't have fog-lights. I thought they were compulsory but obviously not here, in spite of living in the Waikato where it can get pretty foggy at times

lardyl

waikato in winter/spring = sun strike city in the fog.....owch....

nero

I have noticed people driving around Auckland at 9pm, 10pm, 11pm and later which I believe is definately later than 30 minutes after sunset. But not overly worried I just thought it was strange :-)

Did see someone trying to drive the wrong way up Nelson Street in Auckland tonight have to say it caused some confusion! :-)