Besides the obvious driving on the left change, there are a lot of additonal challenges to driving in Australia that make driving here a bit different from other places I have driven.
Drivers:
Drivers in Australia are extremely aggressive, but very well trained. New drivers have to document at least 120 hours of supervised driving before they can get a license. This learner's period for under 21 year olds needs to last at least one year. Learners need to have big Ls affixed to the front and back of their cars. You can get your L plates at age 16. If someone has L plates and is alone in the car, you can get in big trouble. If you get pulled over with L plates and are breathalyzed, your BAC needs to be ZERO, or you can lose your permit. After you earn your license, which you can do at age 18, you have to have "P" plates (for provisional driver) for an additional two years (P1 is a red P and P2 is a green P). You can drive independently, but you have additional restrictions, like you cannot use any kind of mobile phone, even hands-free, and you can only have one peer-aged passenger. BACs of zero again.
So drivers in Melbourne tend to be better trained. The exception is immigrant drivers from the US, like me. They hand Americans a full license with no training whatsoever. We should be required to fly American flags on our cars so everyone knows to stay back.
Other things that make driving here safer: Melburnians signal every single move they make. You're never stuck behind someone who stops in the middle of the road to make a right turn, wondering what they're doing. They signal every lane change, every turn, every pull to the curb. Police will fine you for not indicating. It's delightful. I had trouble when I first moved here, because the signal and the windshield wipers are on opposite sides from on US cars. Instead of signalling, I was wiping my windscreen. Not helpful, and pretty dangerous. Fly those stars and stripes, girl!
Another safety feature: Melbourne has hundreds of speed and red light cameras. People obey the speed limit and do not run the red lights as a result. I don't need to tell my Charlottesville friends that entering an intersection in Charlottesville is scary, because people run red lights there All The Time. Here, I've never seen it. I rarely even see folks enter intersections on yellows.
Drivers:
Drivers in Australia are extremely aggressive, but very well trained. New drivers have to document at least 120 hours of supervised driving before they can get a license. This learner's period for under 21 year olds needs to last at least one year. Learners need to have big Ls affixed to the front and back of their cars. You can get your L plates at age 16. If someone has L plates and is alone in the car, you can get in big trouble. If you get pulled over with L plates and are breathalyzed, your BAC needs to be ZERO, or you can lose your permit. After you earn your license, which you can do at age 18, you have to have "P" plates (for provisional driver) for an additional two years (P1 is a red P and P2 is a green P). You can drive independently, but you have additional restrictions, like you cannot use any kind of mobile phone, even hands-free, and you can only have one peer-aged passenger. BACs of zero again.
Not my photo, it just shows both restriction plates at the same time. And it's funny. |
Other things that make driving here safer: Melburnians signal every single move they make. You're never stuck behind someone who stops in the middle of the road to make a right turn, wondering what they're doing. They signal every lane change, every turn, every pull to the curb. Police will fine you for not indicating. It's delightful. I had trouble when I first moved here, because the signal and the windshield wipers are on opposite sides from on US cars. Instead of signalling, I was wiping my windscreen. Not helpful, and pretty dangerous. Fly those stars and stripes, girl!
Another safety feature: Melbourne has hundreds of speed and red light cameras. People obey the speed limit and do not run the red lights as a result. I don't need to tell my Charlottesville friends that entering an intersection in Charlottesville is scary, because people run red lights there All The Time. Here, I've never seen it. I rarely even see folks enter intersections on yellows.
Australians are also excellent
parkers. I can parallel park here, but I
never do it in one move like most do here, and I’m never quite close enough to
the curb. Reading the parking rule signs often takes an advanced degree, however.
The police here often conduct mass breathalyzer tests at random places. Everyone gets pulled over, everyone gets to blow in a tube. If you refuse, they arrest you. Very different than in the US. Drunk driving (or drink driving as they call it here) is a BAC of over 0.05 (in the US, the limit is 0.08). I've been pulled over once for one of these. The police are very efficient, and very nice. I was only delayed about 45 seconds. But then again, I wasn't drinking at 10:30 AM when they pulled me over, which I imagine makes the process much smoother.
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Super easy to absorb while trying to parallel park at the same time. Enjoy. |
Melbourne has trams on many of its main roads. Some tram lanes are for trams exclusively, others share the road with cars. They always run in the middle of the road. If you share a road with a tram, you are not allowed to delay a tram by zooming in front of it just to turn right. You are also not allowed to pass a tram when it is picking up or dropping off passengers. After a tram has dropped passengers, but hasn't started moving again, you may pass on the left, but slowly. It's scary as hell, because left lanes can disappear with no warning. I only pass trams when I have an entirely free lane to the left of the tram, no parked cars on the side in sight. Otherwise I'm one of the sad few poking along behind it as it makes stop after stop.
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My nemesis |
Because of the tram tracks, drivers are creative about which lane they choose to drive in. Seeing a road with drivers positioned as in the picture below is not uncommon.
Driving conditions:
There is no snow in our area, so no worries about icy roads, but the tram tracks do get slippery in the rain. However, in non-restricted parking areas, people park on both sides of the road, often leaving very little room for actual driving. I find myself slaloming around the road, which is when I forget I'm actually supposed to be staying on the left.
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This is a shared road/tramway. The white line is the middle of the road. There are tram tracks on either side of the road. The white car on the left is parked, but no one else is. There are technically two lanes, but when cars park in the left lane, it effectively reduces driving space to one lane, the same lane as the tram. But as you can see, people drive where they feel. Thanks to my friend Amy G. for her fabulous photo. |
Driving conditions:
There is no snow in our area, so no worries about icy roads, but the tram tracks do get slippery in the rain. However, in non-restricted parking areas, people park on both sides of the road, often leaving very little room for actual driving. I find myself slaloming around the road, which is when I forget I'm actually supposed to be staying on the left.
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This is a two-way road. Every car in the picture is parked. Get ready to do some weaving.
Australians are also big fans of traffic-calming features in the roads with indiscriminate parking on both sides. Here is an example of a road near the kids' school with three traffic-calming features in a row. If you need a lesson in precision driving, this is an excellent place to practice, for you're dodging speed curves and parked cars.
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