Pedestrian Adventures Down Under (or How I Almost Became a Traffic Statistic...)

[resqgeek]

"Jaywalking is not illegal in New Zealand," said our bus driver, as he drove us to our hotel in Auckland. "However, you only get to do it wrong once, so I'd recommend using the crosswalks."

Heh, I was fully aware that they drive on the other side of the road in NZ and Oz. I expected it to be a bit disorienting while riding in the buses, but somehow I hadn't considered the impact it would have on me as a pedestrian. I found it very difficult to remember that the more immediate danger would be approaching from the right instead of the left.

Actually, Auckland wasn't too difficult. Most of the high traffic volume intersections had traffic and crosswalk signals, so I could just wait for the appropriate crosswalk signal and cross the street with relative confidence. Combine that with a limited amount of time to explore (i.e., I never really got outside the heart of the city), and I managed to escape without any close encounters of the automotive kind.

Queenstown was a different story. I don't remember seeing any traffic signals in that town. In fact, I don't recall seeing any "STOP" signs either. The major intersections were all traffic circles (ooops, I mean roundabouts), and all the other intersections were controlled by "GIVE WAY" signs (the local variant of our "YIELD"). For the first couple of days, I repeatedly tried to cross the streets at the intersections, with potentially disastrous results. First of all, there were no crosswalks marked at the intersections. Combined with my decided tendency to look the wrong direction as I stepped off the curb, this resulted in a number of near collisions as I tried to step in front of approaching vehicles. Nothing like realizing that you were within a foot or so of serious injury to make you appreciate the local traffic patterns!

Eventually, I figured out how to safely cross the streets. The marked crosswalks were generally in the middle of the block, and the arrival of a pedestrian at a marked cross walk brought the traffic to a halt, permitting safe passage to the other side of the street. Needless to say, I carefully looked for the crosswalks for the remainder of the stay in Queenstown.

By the time we arrived in Sydney, I was beginning to adjust to the local traffic flow, but I was still amused (and more than a bit grateful, I'll admit) to find the crosswalks in Sydney painted with labels that indicated which way to check for oncoming traffic ("Look Right -->"). Together with the abundance of crosswalk signals, I was able to wander through the city with confidence. The perpetual fear of stepping in front of a ton (or more) of mechanized metal dissipated, and now I could focus my attention on not running head on into the oncoming pedestrians!

Comments

[texaswren.livejournal.com]

Skyring made the exact same observation when he was in Fort Worth! ;-)

[thebiblioholic.livejournal.com]

I had no trouble at all walking around in Australia and New Zealand, however London is a different story. I get very disoriented there and have had a few near misses. I figured out why. In most places, cars parked on the side of the road tend to face the direction of traffic flow. In London I saw that cars park any which way on both sides of the street. Not uncommon to see two cars facing each other on the same side of the street. I apparently use parked cars as visual cues to which way traffic is flowing and when I encounter a car parked in the wrong direction, I make a wrong determination of traffic flow and look in the wrong direction before stepping off the curb. The fact that all the crossings have "Look right-->" painted on the ground doesn't seem to help me. :-)

[resqgeek]

There was a noticable lack of on-street parking in Queenstown, especially on the busier streets, so taking a visual cue from the parked vehicles frequently wasn't an option.

[skyring.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Wren!

Actually, I was thinking of Washington, where I had the added bonus of ice underfoot to send me skidding into the oncoming pedestrians. And Dupont Circle was something else!

Fort Worth didn't really have enough traffic to worry me. Mind you, looking in about a dozen directions every time I stepped off the curb helped keep me alive.