The Road Rules Rant.

I’m the happiest person you’ll ever meet. Really.  Sunshine and light. The funny one. The eternal optimist (married, ironically, to the world’s greatest ‘don’t-trust-anyone-ist’). My girlfriend says my opinion on people is rubbish because I like everybody. That’s not strictly true but I do tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Fortunately, the disappointments who have crossed my path have been few and far between. Unfortunately, incompetents and the inconsiderate are another matter entirely. Especially on the road.

As we enjoyed four days of almost empty roads because half of Sydney cleared out for the Easter break, allow me to  enumerate the many and wondrous ways you can improve not only my, but your fellow travellers’, experience on our narrow and congested highways and byways.

1. Re-acquaint yourself with your blinkers. (Indicators, for any American readers.)  One ‘blink’ when you’re already three quarters of the way into my lane, two inches from my bumper bar doesn’t cut it. They are supposed to indicate intention. I would have let you in, honest.  Now I’m just peeved.

b. If you want to turn right (left, in America), how about you let me know more than two seconds before you stop or before I pull up behind you at traffic lights. When this happens, I guarantee you, that person you see gripping the steering wheel and mouthing something is not singing along to the radio. If expletives could be magically transformed into electricity, this scenario would power the entire east coast.

c. Like pimples on an adolescent’s face, roundabouts appear seemingly overnight in this city. Since they are placed at intersections and since I am not clairvoyant, I don’t actually know which way it is you intend to go. Left? Right? Straight ahead?  Could a blinking light on the outside of the car give me a clue? While we’re here, I may as well point out something else.  The rule is to give way to traffic already in the roundabout and proceed when there is a gap in said traffic. It does not say stop and give way to the car on your right which is still in the next suburb, just heading your way. (Hello? Husband?)

2. Clearway times are not flexible. Surprisingly, if the sign says 9.00am, the expectation of The Roads and Traffic Authority, along with your fellow drivers, is that you NOT PARK there before that time. There is no small print on the sign that says “Oh, by all means, if you’re running late for your train, feel free to park here at 8.50.” You will also not find an exception made for those people desperate for their skinny lattes who “should feel free to just stop for a few minutes to duck in and get their coffees.” at 8.45.  Same applies at the other end of the day when clearways commence at 3.30 to ease that great seething mass of  automobilia known as the school pick-up.  Clearways are our only pitiful defense against peak hour because we get two miserable lanes instead of one.  So please stop stuffing it up.

3. Learn how to park.  Honestly, if there is a line of cars waiting (not by choice) to see whether your eighth attempt at reversing into that Westfields car space is successful, may I humbly suggest you just bite the bullet, find another one and go in nose first. Truly, there’s no shame in it.

b. Marked car spaces. Those lines that delineate car spaces are not a suggestion. You are supposed to park in between them – not over them, not across them.  You are lucky we live in a reasonably civilised society otherwise  people would stab your tyres.

c. Even in the suburbs, on-street parking can sometimes be difficult to find so when you see someone who has taken up two car spaces, your first instinct is to buy a crane, lift their car and drop it into the nearest body of water.  Well, maybe not but you get my drift.  Unless you are driving a limousine or a Hummer, there is no excuse.

4. Green means Go. Most people understand that when the light turns green you put your foot on the accelerator and move…..forward…preferably, immediately.   There is nothing more frustrating than watching from bumper to bumper traffic as the first car in line waits for a particular shade of green then those following leave a couple of car lengths before deciding to head off. This eventuates in a grand total of four or five cars getting through the lights before they again turn red. When this happens at Right Turn Arrows which only last a millisecond at the best of times, it makes the rest of us want to curse your first-born children.

I’m sure everyone has their own pet peeve to add to the list.  A mass exercise in grumpiness! Even with the Easter weekend over, school holidays are still bringing some relief on our roads so enjoy while you can.  The chaos will be back soon enough.

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7 Comments

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      Hi Melba. Thanks for the comment. i’m probably a terrible example for my son – I’m forever complaining about other drivers when we’re in the car! I nodded so often during your School Report piece. I was a chatter and only child. I still have my Reports in a box with my diaries. Probably due for a clean-out myself.

  3. 6

    Great post, and Yes yes Yes, so true, I get frustrated every day on Sydney roads and don’t get me started when it rains, you should do a post on that since for some reason when it rains everyone drives 100% worse on the road.

    • 7

      Hi Sammy. Thanks so much for the follow and that is so true about the rain. So many people seem to go faster and I sit there thinking, “S..t, if they have to stop suddenly, they’re going to slide all over the road and collect all of us!!”

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