Now be truthful, are Kiwis bad drivers?

Each country has its own idiosyncrasies when it comes to driving and New Zealand is no different. With daily near-misses, people incorrectly indicating at roundabouts and a lack of stopping at stop signs, it begs the question: Are Kiwis actually not that good at driving?

YOU SAY

I drive buses for a job, people don’t know the road rules, don’t indicate, not staying in their lane, following too close and too impatient. I used to ride a motorbike, and I learnt not to worry so much about my riding and pay more attention to everyone else’s stupid driving.

Craig from Greerton

Travelling around the South Island at present - the poor driving has us continually being ultra cautious - too many stupid passing manoeuvres, really excessive speed, and a lot of phone reading in oncoming cars. It’s a relief when there’s no traffic. One pass (we were in a bus to Milford Sound) by a car took place about 20m from a corner – luckily for them nothing came from the other direction or they’d still be picking up the pieces.

Grant from Raureka

There are lots of poor drivers everywhere and a lack of police resource to pull people over and educate or fine people for their indiscretions on the road. The police need the power to send people back for another test ... We are all human and make mistakes, but there are far too many people on the roads who either have no idea of or no intention of following the road rules.

Jarrod from Onehunga

You can never change the habits of people who do not have any bad habits. Accidents, to them, are just that, accidents and nothing you can do about them. I arrived from London back in

1970 and thought then that drivers were out to kill me if I did not cross the road quickly enough (they did not know I was from London either). As someone has pointed out, they live in the moment and do not look for potential hazards, they are too busy and their minds can not compute too many things at the same time, like breathing and driving. Gordon from Halswell

I recall being a passenger in a friend’s car driving down Ponsonby Rd when a person who was tailgating suddenly drove up on the median area and cut in front of us. My friend’s response as they did so was to wave vigorously and call out the driver’s window- “Hello, how lovely to see you”. When I asked her if she actually knew them her smiling response was “No but did you see how guilty they looked!”

As a semi-retired driving instructor, I see heaps of bad driving like no indicating when leaving a roundabout, changing lanes with no signaling, speeding in 50 kmh areas etc and going through red lights. In fact if you are first in line at the lights and your light changes to green, it’s a good idea to look both ways in case someone goes through their red light and hits you side on.

Steve from Albany

When entering motorways, many drivers are not even close to approaching the motorway speed limit resulting in unnecessary braking and lane changes. Slow drivers make ‘merging like a zipper’ impossible and are a danger for every car in the area.

Dave from Silverdale

Good drivers, but selfish about letting people in when they want to change lanes. It’s ridiculous. If you see someone indicating that doesn’t mean close the gap ... it means slow down and widen the gap and let them change lanes.

Jillene from Halswell

As an operations manager of a bus company, I can write volumes about poor driving ethics of car drivers, but I will let it go. On an average day, there are about 10 near misses reported by my drivers, the most common being squeezing in between the bus and the vehicle in front, not realising that the bus keeps a bigger safe distance and then having to brake harshly to avoid a collision with the vehicle that has squeezed into the space.