Arrive Alive

Driving around Australia was not quite as daunting as I thought it might.

Generally speaking I found Australian drivers far more courteous and law abiding than their UK counterparts. Most drivers kept their speed on open roads; not always careful in built up areas. There was little in the way of aggressive driving, certainly no tailgating.

Okay, this was a limited three week period, but it was in three different states and in urban, suburban and rural areas. Some apsects weren't that great such as poor lane discipline on motorways/freeways and not a huge awareness of pedestrians at intersections (though I put that down to bad signalling where drivers get a green filter light when pedestrians have right of way.)

However, overall driving behaviour was markedly better.

I wonder how much of this is down to the extensive road safety advertising campaigns. Victoria runs a very in your face campaign. The latest drink/drive campaign features the tag line: "Just over the limit? You bloody idiot".

On most main roads in the country there are frequent signs alerting drivers to fatigue and the perils of "micro sleeps".

You will also find that the use of speed cameras is not popular, but perhaps not as much as it is in the UK. I don't know if cameras are limited to accident blackspots like they are supposed to be in the UK. Cameras are less visible because they've not painted them yellow like they are in the UK.

Still, there must be bad driving around. We saw an overturned car on the Westgate Freeway when driving back into Melbourne.