Thursday, October 29, 2009

My car arrived in Melbourne last Thursday. Within an hour I had an accident. Some p plater girl drove into the back of me. I now fear whenever I see cars with P plates and they are like EVERYWHERE! I live in constant fear.

Now while I can't say I have driving skillls like The Stig, I'm not a stereotypical awful Asian driver either. I do know how to reverse parallel park, merge and signal correctly in a roundabout. I thought WA drivers were terrible but Victorian drivers take the cake. They tail gate, chop and change lanes without looking and expecting you to stomp on the breaks otherwise they will take out the front of your car. It is a nightmare. I fear driving in peak periods.

I have yet to do a hellish hook turn. I think I will avoid that as long as I can. I don't like driving over tram tracks and it seems like these Victorian drivers do not see lane markers; they seems to like to make a two lane road into one and then back into two when they feel like it. They treat road markings not as guides as they should be but more like grafitti on the street to be followed and looked at their whim. My blood pressure must be ridiculously high when I drive. My road rage comes out much much more often than back in Perth.

Apparently I being bullied by Victorian drivers because of my WA license plates. Call me silly but I think the Victorian license plate is ugly looking and I want to keep my prettier WA plate as long as possible.


I also dislike the fact that pedestrians are king here. Cars must give way to crossing paedestrian who don't seem to have a care in the world and walk across streets without looking. Drivers here don't seem to mind and will patiently wait for them. I've nearly ran over a few people. If these paedestrians roamed Perth streets there would be a lot of carnage for sure.

Something else new is tolls. Its a ridiculous concept. The only positive from the tolls is apparently fewer speed camera hence why everyone seems to be driving a minimum 15km over the speed limit.

A GPS is a must. Its not like Perth where I can easily navigate around by memory. The roads here seems to be always changing. There are road works, detours, new roads, roads changing flow.. its challenging drivers to lose their way.

I don't want to become one of these maniac drivers over here in the east but I must do to survive says a friend. I fear for my life.

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