Ok, I know I go on and on about how bad Brisbane drivers are. Even today, I was confronted with ignorant people with seemingly no idea how to drive a car. So this afternoon, I did some research, and I found some info to help people understand the rules. I’ve also included some links if people would like to get a bit of a refresher on the rules.
The biggest issue in QLD is merging. QLD drivers seem absolutely clueless on the merging rules. So here they are:
If you need to merge with moving traffic, there are actually TWO rules. In the picture, you can see that the blue car is trying to merge. In this image, the blue car’s lane is marked with a dotted line as it comes to an end. In this case, the blue car must give way to the green car.
In this image, we see that the blue car’s lane DOES NOT have the dotted lines, so in this case, EVERYONE gives way to any car that is IN FRONT of them. So in this case, the green car would have to give way to the blue car.
It’s important to note that it is actually THE LAW that you must indicate long enough to give sufficient warning to other road users. For you Tradies out there, that means DON’T PUT YOUR INDICATOR ON AS YOU ARE MOVING OVER!
Some of the other rules which some people may have forgotten include:
On a single lane road, drivers must stay as close as practical to the left side of the road (This means don’t put your right hand wheels on the centre line!)
A safe driving distance from the vehicle in front is two seconds. Leaving a gap this big is not an invitation from someone that you can slide in there.
This is one of my favourites. See this picture? It means that the light is ABOUT TO TURN RED. It DOESN’T mean that you still have time to get through the light.
The yellow light is the beginning of the RED light sequence. NOT the end of the GREEN light sequence. The law actually says that you MUST stop for a yellow light. If there is a line drawn on the road under the light, then you must stop there. If not, you must stop without going past the light.
So that’s about it really. Some basic rules that just might be something you have forgotten or weren’t aware of. But I can assure you that if we all start following some of these basics, life on the roads will be a LOT calmer.
And now for some links:
Grumpy Aussie 