Tradies and Ladies (or indicating is optional).

For the past few years I have had to drive up and down the highway between the Gold Coast and Brisbane on most work days.  Got to say,  I am really looking forward to taking a break from this, and as I write this, I have four more days to go in my current job, so the light at the end of the tunnel is very bright right now.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that it is a crappy road, and I don’t even drive all the way to Brisbane most mornings.  It is in fact superb road: you could drop that Gold Coast to Brisbane stretch of the M1 pretty much anywhere in the world and it would still stack up.  It’s mostly pretty straight, four lanes, well signposted even with clearly numbered exits, good surface, no tolls……..so what is the problem?

Pretty simple really, it’s not the road, it’s not even really the volume of traffic, it’s is the way it is used.

With the upcoming games, a couple of changes have been introduced as part of the whole Games Traffic Management plan.  Trucks have been banned from the two right hand lanes, and the speed limit has been reduced slightly: the 110 stretch is now 100 and the 100 bits are 90.  I am certainly very much in favour of the first change, but not a big fan of the second as I really don’t believe that speed is the problem.

I know this is going to sound like a rant and I am going to sound like a grumpy old man, but for $&#*’s sake people how hard is it to move to the left?  It’s not rocket science, you overtake and then you move back to the left, simple really.  It is so frustrating when every morning there is a procession of cars in the right hand lane with space to the left. It drives me insane.  And at the risk of being sexist and careerist (ok, probably not a proper word, but it is now coz I just used it), the worst offenders appear to be tradies and women.  In the afternoons especially, the right hand lane seems to be Ute after Ute with a tradie dressed in high vis behind the wheel interspersed with the occasional female and a smattering of P platers.

Are you supposed to keep left on the motorway? Umm, well yes, absolutely you are. The Queensland drivers handbook sees fit to mention that on any road where the speed limit is over 80 that you must keep left unless overtaking or turning right. Queensland transport sees fit to list failing to keep left as an offence worth two demerit points and a $100 fine. https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/fines/demerit/points#keepingleft

Anyone ever seen the police enforcing this?  Anyone know anyone who has ever got an infringement notice for it?  I highly doubt it, especially considering that the police fail to abide by their own rules. I once followed a police car all the way from Brisbane to the Gold Coast and it sat in the right hand lane the whole way, and I can assure you he wasn’t overtaking traffic the whole way as it was in the middle of the night and we were the only two vehicles on the road, and he was driving under the speed limit and I therefore could not legally overtake………arghhhhhhhhh, so annoying. They are pretty quick to give you a ticket if you are a few k’s over the speed limit though. And don’t get me started on driving instructors; there is one in particular who I see sitting in the right hand lane on a regular basis.  So if the police won’t enforce it, and driving schools don’t teach it, what hope have we got?

So if you don’t drive much (or if you learnt to drive in Queensland), you are probably wondering what the big deal is and probably muttering to yourself that I am a grumpy old man and that I should just build a bridge and get over it.  Well, the big deal is this; our road toll in Australia is appalling when you compare it to most European countries (by capita or by vehicles on the road obviously as we have a much smaller population).  More on the stats a bit later.

So why does this make our roads more dangerous and what data do I have to prove it? (More on the data later).

Very simply, it encourages ‘undertaking’ (passing on the left) and weaving.  If people can’t get past the idiot sitting in the right lane driving a couple of k’s under the limit then they lose patience and go on the inside.  To make matters worse, it isn’t just the far right lane that is a problem as plenty of people will just sit in the next one in without moving left to fill the gaps, so as a result those that are a little less patient are weaving from lane to lane in all directions rather than just a nice simple process of overtaking on the right and moving back to the left.  So simple, and more importantly, so predictable.  What we have a the moment is a highway full of traffic that moves in a totally unpredictable way (and we wonder why there are so many accidents?…).    And, to make matters worse, indicating appears to be optional.  I remember when I learnt to drive I was taught ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’.  Seems pretty intuitive to me,  look in the mirror to make sure it’s safe,  indicate to let others know your intentions, and then move.  I’m not sure what gets taught here, but you would be forgiven for thinking that it might go a bit like this; ‘change lanes whenever you want, you do own the road after all. Indicate if you feel like it, but only after making your initial move. Mirror?  That’s for checking your make up.

So, let’s take a moment to compare our roads with somewhere like, say Germany.  Germany has an awesome motorway network. Most of it has tolls, no speed limits and signs everywhere telling you to keep right. They drive on the right remember, so for us that would be like having reminders to keep left. Could that really make a difference?  What, just a few keep left signs could make our roads safer? Surely not.  Germany also has snow, ice, fog, the occasional mountain road and much more traffic.  So with all that speed and dodgy driving conditions you would expect it to be a pretty dangerous place to drive wouldn’t you?

Australia doesn’t have a great deal of snow, ice or fog and we have speed limits slower than most of the rest of the world, so, you might expect our roads to be pretty safe in comparison to Germany.  Not so unfortunately.  We have about 5.1 deaths per 100,000 people whereas Germany has 4.1.  It might not seem like a massive difference but when you consider the fact that on much of the German motorway network you can drive as fast as you like it seems crazy that ours is higher.  If you compare us to the UK where their speed limits are similar and they also drive on the left then clearly we have a problem.  In the UK the road toll is as low as 2.8 per 100,000.

Now I’m not saying that’s failing to kept left is the sole cause of this high death toll, but I am sure it is a symptom of a bigger problem.  Perhaps if we could focus on better driving standards all round then perhaps we could increase our speed limits a little and still have safer roads.  Maybe we could start by keeping left, move on to learning how to use our indicators correctly and maybe learning how to merge.  Higher penalties for texting and driving would be good and perhaps the death penalty could be re introduced for facebooking and driving (only kidding……..well, maybe).  Once we have mastered all that perhaps we could run some advanced driving courses that could tackle the big issues like picking the correct lane on a roundabout……..don’t get me started on that one!

Now I know this is supposed to be a travel blog, or at least a blog chronicling my year off, and this has really been a rant about driving to work, so I apologise for being a grumpy old man, but now I have got it off my chest I promise to keep future rants to a minimum, and they will be travel related.

I hope this hasn’t put you off following.  Off to Cambodia at the end of the week so the next post will be about that…..promise.