Observations

Living in your car in Auckland

We witnessed the most bizarre behaviour we've ever seen in a car recently on the motorway into Auckland.  We were driving in morning rush hour, traffic was moving along steadily, a bit slower than normal, but steady.  We looked to our right and there was a young couple, we presume, heading into work.  She was driving and he was sitting in the passenger seat eating his bowl of cereal.  Ok that was a bit odd, but what really caught our attention was seeing her (the driver) eating her bowl of cereal!  Driving with her knee, holding the bowl with one hand and spooning in with the other.  We gave them plenty of room.  A bit further on, cereal now finished, she has the visor down so she could use the mirror on the back side of the visor to apply her makeup, still driving in rush hour, still driving with her knee and using both hands to apply makeup.

The Merge Game

There are a quite a few areas in Auckland where there are two lanes of traffic at a stop light and maybe 75 meters on, the left lane ends and traffic has to merge into the right lane.  The normal behaviour for drivers in the left lane is to assume that drivers in the righ lane will slow down and let them merge.  Drivers in the left lane all drive cars without a right turn signal so drivers in the right lane are also presumed to be mind readers.  I no longer look in the mirror to see if someone in the left lane expects me to slow down.   I assume that there is no one there and drive straight on.  So far, no one has hit me, I'm still waiting!

The Passing Lane Race

We took a small mini vacation to celebrate Cathy's 50^th birthday this past weekend and drove about 3 ½ hours to Lake Taupo. As with most roads in NZ, once out of the major urban areas, they are two lane highways with passing lanes every so often to allow traffic to pass safely.  There is a consistent behaviour to drivers in these situations.  You will be following behind someone who is doing maybe 90 km/hr in a 100 km/hr zone.  You're patient as you know there is a passing lane likely not too far ahead so you wait to pass.  As soon as you both get to the passing lane, the car in front speeds up to anywhere between 100-110 km/hr, so to pass you pass at an even greater speed.  If you don't pass them, they get to the end of the passing lane, and immediately slow back down to 90 km/hr.  Not sure of the reasoning behind this, but there is probably a deep seated competitiveness that erupts in these situations.

Parking In Strange Places

True story from a couple of weeks ago.  A family parked in the drive through lane of a fast food restaurant in Auckland and went next door to the shops to pick up a few things.  We see this behaviour or it's variant a lot lately.  The "you don't mind if I park here and block you in, I'll only be a few minutes, surely you can wait for me" syndrome otherwise known as the "Its All about Me Syndrome!"