Tourists on our roads

[Ocean1]

Must have been good for the ACC stats?

Nah, they just make that shit up.

[Deano]

Nah, they just make that shit up.

ACC covers tourists no?

[Ocean1]

ACC covers tourists no?

Oh yeah, I was just taking advantage of the opportunity to talk shit about ACC stat's. Don't believe 'em, see.

[Digitdion]

For years rental companies provided free busses from TeAnau to Milford. Lot of it was gravel back then, and Japanese tourists had no experience with it at all, they'd just drive like they were on a standard blacktop. I heard Avis was losing a car a week for a while. From my last trip down there I'd say things haven't improved much.

I drive a Coach into Milford. Day trips. The driving standard of tourists in rental cars is not getting better. Certainly getting worst. Drivers are getting more aggressive. Passing in totally crazy places. Playing Russian roulette. A few years ago the road was a lot busier, and There was definitely less aggressive driving. Still plenty of accidents though.
With what I see its the nationality of the new emerging tourist powerhouses that we are attracting in bigger numbers that are the offenders. I will let you work this out. But I fear it's only a matter of time before we see a real ugly head on, on the Milford road.

[scumdog]

I will let you work this out. But I fear it's only a matter of time before we see a real ugly head on, on the Milford road.

And everybody wil go what a surprise.
Except you and I.

[JimO]

i was up there just before the rockfall that blocked the road, the wanker driving the bus in front of me stopped on a bridge for a couple of minutes so his passengers could take some pics, cause quite a jam, inconsiderate prick

[Coolz]

Hell yeah,,in Dubai?? if your an outsider and somebody runs up the back of you while your stopped at a traffic light,,,your in the wrong because you are only there at their sufferage and if you weren't there the accident would never of happened.

And your probably going to jail unless you have some "very good" contacts.

I reckon we should apply that reasoning to anybody from south of the Bombays or north of the Brenderwyns

Thats fine. As long as you jaffas are willing to accept the same treatment when every long weekend you flee the city and clog up our roads.

quid pro quo bro.

[Usarka]

What about tourists on bicycles?!

[Grumph]

What about tourists on bicycles?!

On the long straight roads here, it appears to be a universal law that if two vehicles are approaching each other and there's a bicycle on the road, all three will meet at the same point....

I've seen a couple of near misses locally - they do at least ride on the corect side but they're totally unpredictable.

[unstuck]

What about tourists on bicycles?!

50 points apiece.

[scumdog]

What about tourists on bicycles?!

Generally more considerate than our home-grown arrogant/ignorant cyclist.

(Don't get me going on groups of road race cyclists...)

[Berries]

I noticed in the press today while waiting for a coffee at bp connect that an exchange student got convicted for killing those 2 bikers on the lindis pass. It got me thinking of all the amazingly stupid and dangerous driving I have seen from cars with a rental company sticker on the back window.
I have never rented a car in NZ so I don't the process but I assume they just throw the keys at anyone who wants them and don't care if they can drive or not.
Surely this is an issue worthy of notice by our law makers and enforcers, or since they bring so much Money into NZ that the deaths of a few dozen locals a year caused by stupid tourists an acceptable price?

To be fair, bad drivers are bad drivers no matter where they come from. The crash you refer to was one of the more common crash types on rural NZ roads where normally it is just the driver that gets hurts. The sad thing here was the oncoming riders with no escape route.

If you want to talk quality of driver many overseas visitors will have been through a much more vigorous training system than the mickey mouse one we have over here. As a country we rely on tourists. We should therefore expect tourists to be involved in crashes because they fuck up just like any New Zealander. My hunch is that they actually are better than a local because they know they are in a different country so are thinking about the road rules when they drive - most of the time. Holiday mode affects them as anyone who has driven overseas would surely agree.

From experience I know that a crash on ice is often blamed on the road conditions if it is a local but blamed on the driver if they are from overseas. Complete shit if the driver comes from one of the many countries that have harsh winters but sometimes people don't look beyond the country of origin. Having seen how many head on crashes are caused by locals on the wrong side of the road I get a little defensive when the finger is pointed at people solely because they come from somewhere else. Bad driving is bad driving.

I know of some rental companies that used to go for a ride around the block with all foreigners who rented a car but I don’t know how you test them beyond that. And what about people who live in a big city like Auckland and only drive on busy motorways and urban roads? Should we make them do a driving test when they get to the open roads of the south island? I am sure they drive rental cars, and I bet quite a few of them look Asian. The reality is that if 20% or whatever of the drivers on our roads are from overseas then it makes sense that 20% or whatever of the crashes will be caused by drivers from overseas. Is that a problem? What if the crash rate was only 10%? Is that still a problem?

The solution as I see it is yes, we have to accept some level of carnage from allowing drivers from overseas to drive here as we accept the carnage caused by locals. The problem is the unforgiving roads, and they don't care where you come from.

[James Deuce]

Berries is dead right. The punishment this girl got was waaay heavier than anything a local would have received. We need to stop punishing tourists or they'll stop coming here, and their tourist dollar is rapidly becoming much more important due to the plummeting tax take because we have less and less disposable cash every year (GST take on the way down - expect GST to go to 17.5% very soon - then 20%, then 25%) and the excise on tobacco and alcohol is plummeting commensurately as people spend less and less on "luxuries".

I don't agree about the "driver training" comment either. I'd be surprised if any such thing existed in China, and I expect a license can be bought for relatively little cash.

[Berries]

Not quite what I was getting at.

[Ocean1]

Not quite what I was getting at.

Tourists are no worse than local drivers, and our roads are shite?

I know that "generally accepted" facts are often, if not usually wrong, but in this case isn't driver nationality data collected by one of the authorities responsible?

As for shite roads, yes, I think there's things that could be done better, but our country's very wrinkled and there's lots of roads here made with budgets collected from a relatively small number of people.