Roads and Traffic
I've finally found time for more random thoughts on the country, and as we've been hitting the highways and byways I thought I'd start with the road system (where we drive on the left if anyone isn't sure).
While there is ostensibly a motorway/ highway around Auckland, my experience is with the three major roads in the center of the north island: State Highways 1, 2 and 3. These are all well kept (it's summer of course, therefore road work season - here they tend to fix a short section while diverting you around it with single lane traffic during the working day, then leave it covered in gravel with a 30km/h limit until they get around to surfacing) but consist mainly of just two lanes. These are shared by whatever traffic is passing: lorries, cars, cyclists, farm machinery. While the slower vehicles try to move over to the left like in Ireland (an many areas have good hard shoulders) the windy nature of many roads mean overtaking has to wait for short sections where one direction of traffic gets two lanes. These are often on uphills and you have to be ready to hit the accelerator pedal. Consequently NZ has a high level of fatal head on road crashes. On the good side, at night most roads show up well with cats eyes/ reflectors in centre and on the sides.
Most of the roads are not particularly busy, and in town delays are few. Main roads generally go right through town though SH3 manages to bipass the centre of Wanganui just, and you can take an alternative route to skip Palmerston North.
Kids can drive at 15 (though there are many rules for young drivers) and just like my old home in rural England the local youngsters like to roar around in their rides, whether pimped or merely decrepit. Speed limits are pretty typical (100km/h - 62 mph out of town; 50km/h in built up areas). So far one hazard we have not met is livestock on the road.
Cars run the gamut from less than classic UK vehicles of the 1970's (among those I have seen: Mk1 Escort, Vauhall Viva, Morris Maxi, numerous Minis, Hillman Hunter) through to modern Japanese (NZ imports many 3 year old trade-ins as older cars are not allowed in Japan) and Australian imports. Lorries can look like those in Britain or the US.
We have discovered that it's as well to keep filled up with petrol (costs about 52p/l or $4.00/US gallon) as stations to refill are few and far between, even on main roads. A nervous journey was spent hoping the next dot on the map would have petrol, luckily we finally found some before we ran out.
I've finally found time for more random thoughts on the country, and as we've been hitting the highways and byways I thought I'd start with the road system (where we drive on the left if anyone isn't sure).
While there is ostensibly a motorway/ highway around Auckland, my experience is with the three major roads in the center of the north island: State Highways 1, 2 and 3. These are all well kept (it's summer of course, therefore road work season - here they tend to fix a short section while diverting you around it with single lane traffic during the working day, then leave it covered in gravel with a 30km/h limit until they get around to surfacing) but consist mainly of just two lanes. These are shared by whatever traffic is passing: lorries, cars, cyclists, farm machinery. While the slower vehicles try to move over to the left like in Ireland (an many areas have good hard shoulders) the windy nature of many roads mean overtaking has to wait for short sections where one direction of traffic gets two lanes. These are often on uphills and you have to be ready to hit the accelerator pedal. Consequently NZ has a high level of fatal head on road crashes. On the good side, at night most roads show up well with cats eyes/ reflectors in centre and on the sides.
Most of the roads are not particularly busy, and in town delays are few. Main roads generally go right through town though SH3 manages to bipass the centre of Wanganui just, and you can take an alternative route to skip Palmerston North.
Kids can drive at 15 (though there are many rules for young drivers) and just like my old home in rural England the local youngsters like to roar around in their rides, whether pimped or merely decrepit. Speed limits are pretty typical (100km/h - 62 mph out of town; 50km/h in built up areas). So far one hazard we have not met is livestock on the road.
Cars run the gamut from less than classic UK vehicles of the 1970's (among those I have seen: Mk1 Escort, Vauhall Viva, Morris Maxi, numerous Minis, Hillman Hunter) through to modern Japanese (NZ imports many 3 year old trade-ins as older cars are not allowed in Japan) and Australian imports. Lorries can look like those in Britain or the US.
We have discovered that it's as well to keep filled up with petrol (costs about 52p/l or $4.00/US gallon) as stations to refill are few and far between, even on main roads. A nervous journey was spent hoping the next dot on the map would have petrol, luckily we finally found some before we ran out.
posted by Tim | 4:52 PM
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