The change from left-turning giving way to approaching right turning, back to the old right hand rule, can't happen soon enough. Neither should we have to wait till after the RWC.
Most of us grew up with the right hand rule, give way to your right, and if turning right give way to everything.
Simple.
To give the controversy a bunt, I'll allege our current rule is responsible for 50% of intersection accidents and road rage, (its a lot simpler to whack someone, than figure out the difficult, lol).
We're the only developed country still doing it. Victoria reversed its implementation after 2 years, and I'll give them points for seeing its faults rather than attribute to any possible lack of Aussie ability to understand its workings.
I had a little reminder the other day how dangerous our current system is. I was in my right-hand lane, signalling to turn right at the lights. A bus was approaching from the opposite direction, so I stopped.
Right at the line, the bus indicated to turn to his right, and as the approaching left lane up till this time was entirely clear, I started my right turn too.
But, suddenly, from behind the bus, a motor, obviously vexed at being in the wrong lane behind a no-intention signalling bus, hooked out, shot across the intersection, and there we screeched to a halt, 4' apart, but me wearing some expletives from the driver. Fair enough, I broke a biker's rule never to go until the coast is absolutely clear.
But under the old right hand rule, where the left lane would have had unrestricted right of way and traffic flow, that motorist would have been in it, and completely visible to me.
Under our current system its a real bummer trying to decide which lane to approach an intersection in, even when you're first to it, because the vehicle pulling into the lane beside you, might be going in another direction, or more likely, will try to drag you off for lane rights across the intersection.
The proposed new rule does have one snag, the right hand rule wont apply at a T junction. This is plain nuts.
One other point, something similar to the old RHR still operates in USA, only its a left hand rule, and I think our conditioning to the current stupidity only makes assimilating to riding there the confusion it can be.
Even better is their 4-way stop system at uncontrolled intersections, first in has right of way, then subsequent, but we'd need to modify our national aggro for it to work here.
Actually, we've got roundabouts, which offer pretty near the same thing, and might even be safer.
To give the controversy a bunt, I'll allege our current rule is responsible for 50% of intersection accidents and road rage, (its a lot simpler to whack someone, than figure out the difficult, lol).
ReplyDeleteSurely if everyone adheared to the rules this would not happen. But they do need to suit the abilities of everyone who is legally allowed to drive.
We're the only developed country still doing it. Victoria reversed its implementation after 2 years, and I'll give them points for seeing its faults rather than attribute to any possible lack of Aussie ability to understand its workings.
We had it for longer than that, we changed in 1993, I believe we had it before New Zealand. It's often said we introduced it because of trams, but I believe that there was another initinal reasoning too. We were the only state with the rule and we share land borders with New South Wales and South Australia.
I had a little reminder the other day how dangerous our current system is. I was in my right-hand lane, signalling to turn right at the lights. A bus was approaching from the opposite direction, so I stopped. Right at the line, the bus indicated to turn to his right, and as the approaching left lane up till this time was entirely clear, I started my right turn too.
But, suddenly, from behind the bus, a motor, obviously vexed at being in the wrong lane behind a no-intention signalling bus, hooked out, shot across the intersection, and there we screeched to a halt, 4' apart, but me wearing some expletives from the driver. Fair enough, I broke a biker's rule never to go until the coast is absolutely clear.
But this situation involves two vehicles that are turing right from opposite direcitions, and so the rule change may actually increase the likelyhood of this situation.
One other point, something similar to the old RHR still operates in USA, only its a left hand rule, and I think our conditioning to the current stupidity only makes assimilating to riding there the confusion it can be.
And you also have right turn on red, which is remotely similar in concept.
Thanks for the comment Myrtone.
ReplyDeleteMy response....
"Surely if everyone adheared to the rules this would not happen."
The current rule here in NZ, with our predominantly 4-lane city intersections actually makes adherence harder. Our 2-lane channel through the intersection offers in most cases the option of straight through or left turn in the left lane, and straight through or right turn in the right lane. From 2 or 3 cars back you cant see who in front of you is indicating to go where, so there's indecision and jockeying going on for getting in the best lane, viz. the incident with the bus. Put on top of this, inconsistent lane direction markings both within and between cities, and the confusion is compounded.
The proposed return to right hand rule is universally simple, left lane offers unimpeded left turn or straight ahead, right lane you wait till the road is clear, unless traffic lights give you clear way.
"We had it for longer than that, we changed in 1993, I believe we had it before New Zealand."
Apologies, I stand corrected, I merely lifted the 2 years for Victoria from a newspaper article at the time.
"But this situation involves two vehicles that are turing right from opposite direcitions, and so the rule change may actually increase the likelyhood of this situation."
I beg to differ, refer my first comment. On-coming through traffic would be clearly expectable, and visible.
"And you also have right turn on red, which is remotely similar in concept"
You mean left turn on red we have here in NZ, and its not remotely similar to USA's right on red, its exactly the same, except we usually only allow it in a separately designated slip lane.
"But this situation involves two vehicles that are turing right from opposite direcitions, and so the rule change may actually increase the likelyhood of this situation."
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ, refer my first comment. On-coming through traffic would be clearly expectable, and visible.
I did read it, and the bus wasn't even indicating before a turn, breaking the rules. Both of you were turning right, so how is changing the rule between left and right turning vehicles going to fix it?
Now:
Vehicles turning right give way to to straight ahead traffic and left turing vehicles give way to vehicles turning right.
Next year:
Those turing left will not be requried to give way to anything except pedestrians crossing the side street, and those turning right will be requried to give way to anything that moves.
However, consider vantage point, if turning right you are in the middle of the road and so can easliy see oncoming traffic if you just look straight ahead. If turing left you are on the edge of the road, so need te look more rightward to check for straight ahead traffic, can you just turn your head? What about pedestrians crossing the side street? So left turning drivers need to make greater use of their visual field especially as there are times where one may need to rely on sideward glances from both eyes. The normal human visual field is 170 degrees, I've read New Zealand's medical aspects of fitness to drive and the minimun visual field is 20 degrees less, and the minimum visual acuity is only 20/40, to average of the healthy eye is 20/12 or 20/16.
I beg to differ, refer my first comment. On-coming through traffic would be clearly expectable, and visible.
Whatever the rules are, you wait if anything with right of way could hit you, the end, full stop. I've read that one is supposed to wait as if giving way if unable to see behind the bus. If only the bus indicated before the turn, you surely would have had more time to react.