Hot Fuzz

Jan 7: We were just driving around town at about 11:30 pm. I like to drive late because there are fewer people on the road. I'm relearning manual driving and I'm also trying to overcome the last 7ish years of driving on the other side of the road. Apparently we were in a dodgy part of town. I was out practicing my manual driving on Mr. Collins and I got pulled over by a cop. It was a startling experience because I was fairly sure I hadn't done anything wrong. She asked for my license, wrote down my car information, took down my NZ address and phone number. The lady cop asked how long I had been in the country and if I'd been drinking. Then I got a breathalyzer where I counted to five while she held a reader in front of my mouth. Since I hadn't been drinking, I wasn't worried about the test. I was concerned on why I had been pulled over in the first place. I didn't think my driving was erratic, but I am driving a manual car so my shifting is still a bit jerky. After the breathalyzer she just walked away. So I can only assume I didn't do anything wrong and it was a random breathalyzer or it was a breathalyzer brought about by bad manual driving.

Driving:
Here they drive on the left side of the road. Sometimes after I make a turn, I'll start to straighten up in the right lane. Usually I correct myself and it just looks like I've taken a wide turn, but sometimes I completely forget until Gordon says "you're driving in the wrong lane."

The driver's side is also switched in these cars. If you're the driver then you would get in on the right side of the car. This makes driving even harder. When I'm driving here, I veer a bit to the left because I subconsciously want to line up my left with the left edge of the road. Unfortunately, this would put the passenger side of my car on the sidewalk or in the bike lane. When driving in the US the yellow dividing lines were always helpful in making sure my car was centered in my lane. It's difficult to break the habit of trying to line up my car using the leftmost lines. I need to start using the dividing lines on my right.

Give way. This is a weird NZ driving rule. You have to give way at certain places, but there are signs. When there are signs, it's not a problem and it is similar to our yield signs. However, there's a give way driving rule that says if I'm driving down the road and turning right and you're driving up the same road and turning left and we're both turning into the same place, you have to give way to me. It's odd. In the US if that happened, I would have to stop and give way. In NZ if two people are turning into the same area coming from different directions whoever would get hit in the driver's side if there were to be a collision, must give way.

Our car does not have power steering. This is something I have never encountered in a car before. It's not too bad once you're used to it, but wow is it surprisingly hard to turn a car without the aid power steering for the first time.

Traffic circles with more than one lane. Yes, that's as complicated as it sounds.