Oblivious drivers

[James Deuce]

he even gets half way out of his van !! I was kinda shitting my pants at this point as he was twice my size thankfully, I made it home in one piece.

Guess where people like that try to hit you when they do try to have a go?

In the head.

What are you wearing on your head?

An armoured knee to the groin FTW.

[MIXONE]

Mikkel if you've lived in chchur for a while you well know what a few days of a nor'wester wind can do.To any one else beware.It drives many people temporarily bonkers.Throw in a full moon and you have the perfect recipe for mayhem on and off the roads.

[slimjim]

yup got caught out ,going through auckland city...turned fucking right into a oneway street..starbucks three shops up..6am on a sunday..fucking lost as..bugger was hailed loudly..by a police car.turn around and go back down...stopped and pushed bike over to curb and pushed it to starbucks ..so it happens alright .

[sunhuntin]

i cant recall what the weather was doing. it may have been a bit of everything!

i found the signs to be the worst bit, specially in the 80k area with all the roundabouts. signs impossible to read till you were in front of the queue, and 9 times out of 10, i was in the wrong fricking lane. got lost so much out that way! [heading towards new brighton from north] actually found the middle of town easier to negotiate!

[Ixion]

I find NZ roads hugely mislabeled, signs not in readable places, or no signs at all for important things.

But it has gotten better in the last 10 years.

Far out I'd get lost something chronic traveling around 6-10 years ago.

Tauranga is the worst. They have this weird system of putting the signs some way down the road AFTER the intersection. So if you want to go to X you have to randomly choose a turning, go down it a couple of hundred yards to the sign, see if it the one you are looking for, and if not U turn, go back to the intersection and choose again!

The logical idea of putting the sign BEFORE the turnoff apparently has made no impression there.

[James Deuce]

Tauranga is the worst. They have this weird system of putting the signs some way down the road AFTER the intersection. So if you want to go to X you have to randomly choose a turning, go down it a couple of hundred yards to the sign, see if it the one you are looking for, and if not U turn, go back to the intersection and choose again!

The logical idea of putting the sign BEFORE the turnoff apparently has made no impression there.

Tauranga is largely populated by "very old people". Old people have issues remembering where they are going once they've left the driveway so the signs have been set out in such a way as to remind the old dears where they are going, not to inform vistors of how to get somewhere.

[vifferman]

I find NZ roads hugely mislabeled, signs not in readable places, or no signs at all for important things.

i found the signs to be the worst bit, specially in the 80k area with all the roundabouts. signs impossible to read till you were in front of the queue, and 9 times out of 10, i was in the wrong fricking lane.

Tauranga is the worst. They have this weird system of putting the signs some way down the road AFTER the intersection.

...the signs have been set out in such a way as to remind the old dears where they are going, not to imform vistors of how to get somewhere.

Bleat, bleat, bleat!
You guys have no freakin' idea how good the signage generally is in Noo Zilund.
I spent nearly 4 hours of my life that I'll never get back, trying to navigate in Brussels. It took me nearly two hours to get out of Brussels, and even longer to find the Midi station coming back in. There are few signs, and they're not continuous, but more of the type, "Head in this general direction..." then nothing for many blocks, intersections, etc. Street names (and many direction signs) are affixed to buildings, and they're inconsistent in size, shape, colour, height, and if they have arrows, it's not always apparent which direction they're pointing. Furthermore, if you can actually see them while driving, you've gone past before you can decide if it's the street you want.

I have few problems navigating in New Zealand: the signs are generally well-maintained, consistent colouring, placed where they're visible and usually in advance of where a turn needs to be made. If it wasn't for the general gormlessness and lack of manners and road skills of the average NZ driver, finding yourself in the wrong lane wouldn't be an issue.

[vifferman]

Tauranga is largely populated by "very old people". Old people have issues remembering where they are going once they've left the driveway ...

Yeah.
It surprises me that Roundabouta has more roundabouts per capita than any other place in the world, given how much trouble old people have with them. I was living there when the roundabouts first started to breed and proliferate, and it was pandemonium. Soon they will all be joined, and it will be nigh impossible to drive in a straight line anywhere in the city.

Heh... I remember when Rotorua got its first roundabout, where Devon St, Old Taupo Road, and Otonga Rd join. The first morning after it was instituted, there was a line of tyre tracks through the dirt and shrubs in the middle. Shortly after, they dumped some huge rhyolite boulders in the middle. Next morning, there were tyre tracks up to the boulders...
A favourite game late at night when we'd been out on the turps was to see how many times you could drive around the roundabout.
Anticlockwise.
From memory, I think the record was 37 times.

[The Lone Rider]

Bleat, bleat, bleat!
You guys have no freakin' idea how good the signage generally is in Noo Zilund.

I'm from Chicago, NZ roads and signage are a joke compared to it.

Even got lost on way to lady friends house this morning. First time over at her place, turned onto what I believed was her street.. no sign where I turned on but the next intersection on this country road said what street I was on.