Kiwis and Cars

Even being a pedestrian here has its challenges.

To begin with, since cars drive on the left, we had to learn to look to the right before stepping off a curb instead of looking to the left—which is a lot more reflexive than you might imagine.

Another big difference is that pedestrians never have the right-of-way except in a special crosswalk marked with symbols painted on the roadway and by circular orange signs or globes.

The pedestrian's only friend

These crossings are very few and far between indeed! We’d have to go many blocks out of the way to find one in order to cross the street. Nor is it an option to walk to the end of a block and cross at a stop sign or traffic light. We haven’t seen more than 2 or 3 stop signs on the whole island, and traffic lights are so rare they even have a special symbol on the maps.

So most commonly we must cross right in traffic at mid-block: Wait until there are no cars approaching from the right close enough to hit us, step into the street and cross to the center line, then wait there on the center line until traffic approaching from the left is clear enough to step into that lane, and finish crossing. Exactly what we’ve been taught all our lives NOT to do!

We’ve read that in wartime England, the British changed all the street signs, city and country. That way any potential enemy invaders would have no idea how to make their way around. Bob doesn’t understand why Jan won’t drive a car here, but she is deeply suspicious that the whole traffic system has been designed to foil Americans. Here are her top reasons for not driving in New Zealand:

 Driving on the left  

The steering wheel is on the right-hand side of the car. Controls are on opposite sides of the steering column. The right lane is the fast lane (cars pass on the right). All motorway exits are left-hand exits.  

Roundabouts  

These are at every intersection except the very, very few that have traffic lights. Though there are right-of-way rules, apparently they don’t apply to anyone who is driving fast enough—so roundabouts become giant games of “chicken” where an unlimited number of opponents can come from up to 6 different directions.

Unusually well-marked roundabout sign. Only five entrances/exits in this one. But what's that blank space? A dead end? A safe zone from our opponents? A street with no beginning or end?

 

Some roundabouts are nothing more than a softball-sized circle painted at the empty intersection in a quiet suburban neighborhood, which we must faithfully go around instead of just turning. But at busy intersections on the motorway, roundabouts may be 20 feet or more across, have several lanes, and be up to 6 feet high--with tall landscape plantings as well. In these it’s impossible to observe in advance anything other drivers in the roundabout might be planning.

It’s also impossible in these to see where the upcoming exits are until we are upon them. See how the photo below is a little blurred? That's because--when the exits are identified a few feet in advance of the roundabout--we have to figure them out as the signs are zipping by at 100 kilometers per hour.

Huh? 

And what do those dotted lines mean? No opponents allowed? We'll be forced off the circle? It was really only a crescent-about to begin with?

Ordinarily we just have to "know" which exit we want in advance, even if we've never been there before. NO slowing down to read or think, or you'd be run right over!

The Motorways The Northern Motorway is southbound and the Southern Motorway is northbound, until the southbound motorway becomes the Southern Motorway or the northbound motorway becomes the Northern Motorway. A sign at the end of each on ramp announces which motorway you are entering. Otherwise the switches aren’t indicated once you are already actually on the motorway. So where the heck are we now???

 

The Local Place Names

What did they tell us the name of that exit was again?

Surface Street Signs  

They don't identify the name of the street we’re traveling on, only the street we’re crossing. Why, you may ask, don’t you already know which street you are traveling on? You turned into it, didn’t you? True. But after only 2 blocks “Burns” for example has, unbeknownst to us, become “Auburn”, so where the heck are we now???

Why, you may ask again, don’t you simply buy a navigator? Well, we did. Unfortunately after 2 weeks it toppled off its mount and fell 6” onto the padded dashboard. But that small drop was enough to crash the sound card. Now we have to follow an electronic map on the little screen. Unfortunately every time we drive anywhere remotely in the vicinity of the motorway, the manufacturer thought it would be helpful to cover the map with two large tablets telling us which entrance we are nearest, and where the next exit would be if we were actually on the motorway. So where the heck are we now???

Rules of the Road

The rules aren’t the same here. Most terrifying is the one about turning at an intersection. Translated to “American”, the driver making a left turn has the right-of-way in front of a driver making a right turn, but not in front of a driver coming straight through the intersection. This means you are always turning left in front of someone, so if the right-turning driver isn’t actually turning at all but just accidentally has his turn-signal on, you’ll be killed. Or if the right-turning driver doesn’t feel like yielding, you’ll be killed. Only these aren’t “left turns” and “right turns” since we’re traveling on the left. They are instead right turns and left turns--a life and death difference. So just reverse all the directions in the instructions above and you’ll be prepared to drive safely in New Zealand. “Straight through” above is of course still “straight through”, but in the left lane.

Bob spent a lot of time driving in England so hasn’t had much trouble adapting here. (Well, the windshield wipers still sometimes mysteriously come on when we approach an intersection, which we understand is a dead giveaway that an American is driving.) So driving on the left is another thing on Bob’s lengthy list of what he does well.

But to Jan it seems as if other drivers are careening at us from all directions without rhyme or reason. Just riding to work each morning as a passenger is enough to leave her thoroughly tense and frazzled for the day. But at least she has never actually grabbed the steering wheel out of Bob’s hands as one of the other missionary sisters admitted to doing to her husband here once…