Stuffed Possum

Ooh, another close call turning right into a petrol station this morning. The driver coming the other way was indicating left, and his road positioning was such that I assumed he was actually intending to turn in - only when it was too late did I see he was not slowing, until he screeched to an emergency stop, thankfully before ploughing into my vehicle! Yes, he'd left his indicator on.

The day before, I was starting to turn right in front of a vehicle indicating left who stopped, but he'd moved far enough round the wide junction that the boy racer behind was able to roar past him, and almost clip me.

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to introduce the rule whereby traffic turning left has to give way to traffic turning right? As I negotiate my way up through the little streets of hilly Wellington around the Terrace, I can perhaps see a tiny benefit. Many of these little streets were not designed for todays volume of traffic, and with parking either side it is almost single file. So when someone is blocking the road whilst waiting to turn, it makes some sense for them to get priority to restore traffic flow. I imagine some half-witted politician or civil servant observed that scenario in their own street and proposed the idea and it was nodded through into law without due thought. (I have not researched any of this of course, I'm just making it up.)

The system does not work well in any other scenario I have ever encountered. I believe this law is unique in the world - no other country has adopted it, and for very good reason.

ACC and the government are hand-wringing about the road accident rate. I would love to see the figures of how many crashes annually are caused by this stupid 'turning left gives way to turning right' road rule. In particular, the number of people causing a crash by turning right in front of motorcyclists who have indavertently left their indicator on - indicators don't self-cancel very well on 'bikes, and it is easy to leave it on by mistake.

Time for reform.