After I wrote about the first difference between Adelaide and Apeldoorn, I knew I’d miss a few things……so here is part 2 with some more topics……….I know there’ll be more in future.
Last time I wrote about the Carparks and the water, but this time it’s about the driving.
There is a very different attitude to driving here, but I do think overall they are much more skilled drivers. They are more skilled in snow and ice (not like we get that often in Adelaide) and while people tend to speed here more, they are far more responsible with tailgating (most of the time) and sticking to the right (or left as it would be in Adelaide). Basically here, you cannot overtake from the slow lane, and they ACTUALLY follow that law (most of the time).
It actually works much better on the freeways, and I think if they worked on policing some of these things, we’d end up with safer drivers in Adelaide…….rather than just putting radars around everywhere.
The reason I think this, is because some of the time the driving is pretty scary here, but with the huge population in such a small area there doesn’t seem to be a greater number of accidents (18 million people living in an area that is just a large dot on Australia).
For exampe:
In Adelaide if you enter onto a freeway (our one and only true freeway in Adelaide), you ease in, giveway, look for a space, if there’s a lot of cars then one will generally back off a bit to allow you to move it. It’s all pretty nice. In the Netherlands, expect them to leave you room and you’ll find yourself unable to change lanes and you’ll get stuck in the emergency lane, something which you’ll get fined heavily for.
Instead, what you must do is choose your target. You must decide, “ok I’m going to go there” and just move there. If a car is in the way they move for you at that point, but only if necessary to avoid hitting you. Essentially it seems that if it doesn’t cause an accident, then it isn’t illegal, lol.
Same with roundabouts……it’s perfectly fine to enter a roundabout and cut some one off, only as long as you don’t hit them.
If you ride a bike or motor bike, then whether you ride on the bike lane or the road depends on whatever gets you there quicker. Many motor bikes switch to the bike lane at roundabouts, because bikes have right of way there……….very annoying.
In the end you end up with safer roads though, because drivers EXPECT to be cut off. In Adelaide some accidents occur because drivers expect right of way. Interesting issue, where what is supposed to be safer could in effect cause more accidents?