Fit to drive?

I have a sneaking sympathy for those who have been insisting that issuing speeding tickets for very small infringements of the 50kmh limit on quiet city streets was not likely to have much impact on the road toll. My impression, after a considerable amount of time on the open road recently, is that drivers are moving more responsibly these holidays. But the Minister of Police is right to review the muddle-headed way in which the holiday policy was implemented. There are a lot of other factors in road safety than merely speed and we may have reached the point where even harsher application of a sensible law may make it silly.

"Now which side of the road?"

I have less sympathy for those who would make every overseas visitor sit a driving test before venturing onto our roads. Undoubtedly there is a problem. Last week we had a chat to one overseas driver who had been holding up a dozen vehicles at 65 kph. She claimed that no one could pass her, even on an open, clear road, because there wasn’t a passing lane. Maybe a short introduction to the fundamentals of driving on other than US Interstates could have helped her before she drove off in a rental vehicle.

But if we are to introduce some kind of test for rental car drivers in this country, it would be reasonable that other countries require the same of us when we visit them. Our trip to the USA in 1983 would have been very different if Bev and I had been required to pass some kind of test the sixteen times we hired rental cars on our Trip of a Lifetime.

Also, there are other groups who are less well known to be at risk to themselves and others. Perhaps we should have a test for Seniors like me, who got their driving licences sixty years ago and haven’t had to answer a question on the Road Code ever since. Or for Under-20s who may have passed the theory test but whose skill is not always as great as their confidence. Or for any other groups of drivers who are likely to contribute more than their share to the road toll. 

Perhaps what we need is a brief on-line refresher and a short-answer test that any driver should be able to pass on demand by an authorised person. Failure could certainly raise questions about hiring a rental car. Building such a test into the present mutual recognition of drivers’ licences among many nations might ease a problem for other countries as well as our own.

Drive Carefully!

It’s disappointing that our Easter zero road toll is not going to be repeated this holiday weekend. 

But it was simplistic of the Police to claim that the Easter success was because of their strict monitoring of motorists’ speeds. Sadly, the last 24 hours have made it very clear that the issues are much more complex than that.

We need to keep working on this, all of us who drive.  Bev and I, who have been on the road quite a bit the last couple of weeks, are always grateful to get back to Te Haumi without incident.

Watch how you go!

It’s 8am at Omarama, misty but with promise of another absolutely stunning day like we saw at Lake Tekapo yesterday. We’ve had two lengthy "Wow!" days on the road and are looking forward to a shorter trip today. But, enjoying the drive in a heavily-loaded smallish rental car, we’ve been passed by a few fairly brisk drivers along the way. They’re a bit wild through the middle of the South Island, it seems.
Thirty years ago I proposed on public radio that there should be driver “wardens” who could report traffic misbehaviours. Nobody took it up at that time but these days any driver can “dob in” another driver on an official form and the Police will follow it up, usually writing to the alleged offender. I’ve submitted two or three such reports myself.
But not on this trip. I’ve been a bit subdued since driving onto a two-lane roundabout in front of a car in the outside lane who appeared to be leaving it instead of coming round in front of me. He could legitimately have dobbed me in. Perhaps he did.
So now I would like a lot more publicity to be given to the suggestion made some time ago that we have a clear hand signal that apologises, “Oops, I’m really sorry I did that.” I think the suggestion at the time was a spread-out hand raised up. Something like that could just ease a little tension that might otherwise have been caused by a minor act of thoughtlessness.However, until it is widely recognised, that particular signal might also be interpreted as “Five fingers to you, mate!”