Dialogue: Bad-driver jokes wear thin as road toll climbs again

By KEVIN TAYLOR

There's a funny side to driving in New Zealand. Everyone seems to claim as a badge of pride that their own town (or the one in which they are presently living) has the worst drivers in the country.

They almost boast about it.

I'm originally from Christchurch, and many Cantabrians take take a perverse pleasure in boasting that the Garden City has the worst drivers in the country.

But I can honestly say the drivers in the Waikato are shockers that leave Cantabrians for dead. And as for Auckland drivers, they are in another world again.

Cantabrians at least know how to use roundabouts. Many Hamiltonians don't - especially the one who cut me off the other week while trying to turn right from the outside lane of a two-lane roundabout.

This happened while I was trying to go straight through on the inside lane.

Amazingly, after I jammed on the brakes and avoided a collision by mere centimetres, traffic coming from my left tooted at me to get out of the way.

Although many South Islanders have yet to learn what the plastic stick protruding from the steering column is for, indicating - or the lack of it - is an even worse problem in the North Island.

Aucklanders are better drivers mainly because there is so much traffic, and if you don't cope with the motorway system you are in big trouble.

Miss that Nelson St off-ramp into the central city and you have to spend half an hour retracing your steps when you are forced to drive over the Harbour Bridge.

But there is one overwhelming difference between the islands - speed.

The sedate South Island's drivers are nothing like their northern counterparts, who are in an all-consuming, desperate, break-neck rush to get somewhere, anywhere, and fast.

Northerners also appear to have shorter fuses.

I recently saw a confrontation between the occupants of a car and a bolshie woman in the passenger seat of a 4WD in Auckland's St Lukes shopping centre carpark.

The car had just pulled out of a parking space and was trying to go one way, only to come up against the 4WD going the other way. Despite loud abuse, nobody would budge.

Stubbornness prevailed during this ridiculous display. Eventually one vehicle forced its way past the other, but both drivers were in the wrong - and in the right.

Neither was going the wrong way in a one-way carpark lane - the arrows painted in bright white paint on the ground indicated it was a two-way lane.

Recently a colleague and I were driving back to Hamilton. While heading south in the extreme left-hand lane of the Southern Motorway, we were passed, not to our right - but to our left - by a speeding car.

The left lane had merged from two into one some distance back, but this driver decided the extreme left lane would simply continue - in the form of the motorway's shoulder.

Arrogant New Zealand drivers not only need refresher courses, but a change in attitude. The roads are not their personal aggression zone.

Criss-crossed by many state highways and dotted with small towns, Waikato is the major road conduit between Auckland the rest of the country.

And it is on Waikato roads that 100 people are predicted to die this year. This grim forecast comes from the Land Transport Safety Authority.

Each year the number of people dying on Waikato roads is growing. Last year 101 people died, compared with 93 in 1999 and 77 in 1998.

Head-on crashes are now accounting for 34 per cent of those killed in Waikato - higher than the national average of 28 per cent. And most of the crashes - 89 per cent - are happening on the open road.

Environment Waikato says speed-related crashes are also increasing as a proportion of all crashes.

People should think about that before continuing to drive like idiots.

The small mistakes - or downright arrogance - evident in a 50-km/h zone increase in consequence many-fold on the open road.

And jokes about your town breeding the worst drivers don't seem quite so funny any more.

Herald Online feature: Cutting the road toll

Do you have a suggestion for cutting the road toll?

E-mail Scott MacLeod. Please supply your name and address.

Links:

Are you part of the dying race?

Take an intersection safety test

LTSA: Road toll update

Massey University: Effectiveness of safety advertising