Driving in Australia
Tasmanian Sojourn: How Does The Southern Isle Drive?
My spouse works for a university and has a role which requires her to attend interstate conferences. Last week it was a ride to Hobart; three days of work then a bit of down time.
Day one: arrival on a cloudless Sunday and hotel right next to Constitution Dock (finish line for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race). Do the basics of unpacking and walk around the immediate harbour precinct; some wonderful fish and chips (bad luck if you’re a vegetarian seeking anything other than fried potatoes though, as my partner is) and a topless double decker bus ride around to Wrest Point, to the base of Mt Wellington and the Cascade Brewery, through town and back to the harbour. What becomes increasingly obvious is Hobart is a living museum, locked in a time bubble with regulations forbidding development and buildings of a residential nature past a double storey. Being Australia’s second oldest city is one thing, making it look like a time traveller’s paradox is another.
An odd piece of road design has the main north western entrance streaming past Constitution Dock, leading to Hobartian gridlock morning and afternoon. I say odd as it is right next door to what is the town’s main tourist attraction, in real terms and having to wait for traffic that should be a block or two away isn’t tourist friendly. Having said that, at least the delay between greens and reds and turns is minimal to NSW’s laughably titled “world class system”. Sadly, Hobart is even more infected by colour blind drivers than the rest of the country, with eight of ten drivers having no idea what an amber or red light stands for, to the detriment of pedestrians that thought they were safe to cross….
Come Wednesday lunchtime (whilst the boss was at work, the kids and I had visited the Cadbury factory, overrun with American OH&S laws and a trip to a wildlife refuge), after solid rain since Monday and no chance to visit the 1200+ metre peak of Mt Wellington as a result, it’s a lazy 90 minute drive to Port Arthur. The one thing about maps, which brings to mind the old stories about tourists visiting the mainland and going “it was only this far on the map (spreading finger and thumb)” is that everything really isn’t that far away. Cold, wet and grey skies dominate the landscape and here is another sign that the insiduous desease of bad driving has clearly spread to our southern cousins; no one, but no one uses headlights if they are locals. Our hire car, a Nissan X-Trail (thankfully upgraded from a what would have been too small i20, with petrol and CVT box), with a West Aussie trained driver at the wheel, has lights ablaze, only to be greeted by confused Tasmanian faces.
Port Arthur itself, a marvel of convict construction, is probably best seen when it’s not being covered in Niagara Falls….sadly, poignantly, there’s no apparent acknowledgement of those that lost their lives during the mass shooting in 1996 with that absence overshadowing what we should have felt. The roads themselves are generally well built and maintained, plus there’s a welcome reliance on the driver to be more aware of road conditions on hillside roads in some areas by having only the vertical reflector posts rather than the crash barriers automatically expected.
Thursday morning, still wet and the schedule is to drive to Cradle Mountain. Due to a minor navigational hiccup we end up heading north on the highway to Launceston rather than the planned route through the mid western coast. Again, the roads are easy to drive, causing the X-Trail no issues although I had switched it into torque-sensing 4WD for the expected wet roads. The highway to Launceston is not particularly engaging until we head west, south of Devonport, with the spectacular bluffs of the Mt Roland and Gog Ranges in view. Unfortunately the route taken takes us north and out of view of the beautiful Lake St Clair but leads into some tight and steep roads through the quaintly named Mole Creek before finally arriving in 5degree air temps and Cradle Mountain.
The X-Trail has performed well; two adults, two kids and probably 70kg of luggage for around 570kms from the unleaded fuel. Cars passed: not that many. Cars with headlights on: not that many. Cars of a dark colour: just about every one. Safety factor:….ummmmmmmmm…..
Friday morning; it’s back down to the Cradle Mountain view point at Dove Lake as it’s a clear and almost cloudless day; it’s a spectacular sight but the wind chill precludes a planned walk. To drive to the lake, the authorities have put in place a 40kmh limit along a 8km long road most of one lane. It’s smart, simple and effective but surprisingly not to do with traffic control, as a night time animal spotting tour the evening before confirms. It’s solely to do with minimising animal fatalities, with wallabies, possums and “paddy melons” (a almost kangaroo version of a quokka) plus the declining Tasmanian Devil population finding their lives ended by vehicles. A quick visit to the Tasmanian Devil refuge just up the road, an effort to help stem the shocking facial tumour disease that’s decimated a terrible 80+ percent of the island’s devil population shows them as they are; a surprisingly cute, almost puppy like creature curled up in the morning sun.
Most of the state limit is either 100 or 110 kmh; that’s most comfortable enough with the roads generally not straight enough on the western side to offer a higher velocity, whilst the highway north to Launceston clearly had room to increase. From Cradle Mountain, to Burnie, across to Devonport and finally Launceston (with a diversion to the cataract chair lift ride on the western fringes, plus a Devon Tea shared with the 
numerous peacocks and peahens) was a leisurely drive, along some quality surfaces. For the most part, Tasmanian roads are smooth, maintained and ask the driver to be aware of the conditions and take responsibility for their safety. A noticeable not quite downside is having a sign, say 300m before a turnoff alerting you to a potential sight to see….yet no sign AT the actual point you were meant to turn and the distances certainly weren’t always accurate….Another noticeable lack was police or highway patrol cars. I genuinely don’t recall seeing one until Friday evening coming into the airport at Launceston where JetStar lived up to their reputation with another two hour delay….
Mainland drivers should visit Tasmania, to experience a less restrictive, less “nanny state” way of doing things. For example, the road to/from Port Arthur and up to Cradle Mountain encompasses plenty of areas where there’s no speed advisory signs nor crash barriers. You, the driver, are expected to do what a driver SHOULD be doing: be aware, drive to the road and the conditions. The downside is the lack of genuine safety enforcement, not just in Tasmania but Australia wide, when it comes to wet road situations. Using headlights and indicators is a basic safety function, as is stopping for red lights. The argument for speeding as a revenue raising exercise is fair yet, mitigated somewhat, by the fact that there’s no police action on other safety aspects which WOULD also contribute to revenue. Currently, NSW’s stance on non-indication is 2 demerit points and $140 per infraction; if policed as a safety initiative it would be a massive contributor to the coffers, yet……
One final point of note: the Government provided indication signs with two markers; one each for a fatality or a crash, each clearly defined. Thankfully and welcomingly, we didn’t see many at all….so, perhaps, apart from the lack of regard for other drivers under dark skies, there may be safer drivers in Tasmania due to the lack of other over policing….
Your new car is a better driver than you
Sit back and think, the average person owns a car for 5 years (give or take), now think of what technology you used 5 years ago.
iPhone? it was emerging as the must have gadget.
However If you went to a electronics store and asked for a tablet the sales person would speak slowly to you while ushering you towards the nearest chemist.
Back in 2009 , if some one told you they had an Android you’d look at them like they were some kind of crazy person who had watched too many sci-fi movies.
As with phones and mobile devices, user integration is an inevitable evolution of the motor car, in addition to having information at our disposal at all times. The downside is (if you can call it a downside), information is ever changing not just the content itself but its format too. 5 years ago upgrading the tech in your car meant replacing the radio, in the future it may just mean connecting your car to the Internet and downloading the latest upgrade.
Even the Commodore parks itself
It’s no longer science fiction that your car will know what’s going on around you before you do. GPS that will direct you around traffic snarls, systems that will tell you where the cheapest fuel is and how long until you need it, automatic transmissions that rely on satellites to know what types of road conditions are ahead of you and adjust accordingly. These are features on cars you can buy now!
I know what you’re thinking “all this is techno-wizardry is only on uber expensive European cars” that’s where you’d be wrong. The humble Holden Commodore now parks itself, don’t like the radio station playing in your Ford Focus? Simply ask the car to change the channel, even having adaptive cruise control on a sub-$50 000 car is not out of the question
The 2014 Mazda 3 interior was designed in partnership with a leading Psycologyst
The new 2014 Mazda 3 due early next year, has both the automotive world and tech industry buzzing. The reason? Mazda claim to have future proofed the 3. Working with Ergonomics Gurus, Tech Geeks and even Psychologists, Mazda developed all their new features to be upgradeable as the car ages, but be less distracting to the driver too.
The 3 will also have the potential to run identical operating systems and programs to your smartphone. Internet radio, Facebook and twitter will all be integrated into the system. Just like the smartphone industry though, it will be the independent developers who will create a whole new industry around the technology found in the next generation of cars.
Car Maintenance Every Woman Can Do
You’ve probably seen that joke doing the rounds about the male way of changing the oil versus the female way of changing the oil, where the guy does it himself – with the “help” of a crate of beer or so – while the woman just heads down to the local service station and enjoys a paper and a coffee while someone else does it for her. This wee script is a good laugh, but it is, of course an exaggeration. Women can and do car maintenance for themselves, so don’t let any jerk of a mechanic tell you that you can’t. What’s more, if you know your way around the inside of a car, you’re less likely to be ripped off by said jerky mechanic who thinks “Here’s a woman who knows nothing about cars, so we’ll see what we can get away with telling her needs doing and charge her the earth for it.”
Any woman can benefit from knowing how to do a bit of basic car maintenance, ranging from the penny-pinching mother who wants to save a buck or so by doing everything she can rather than paying for somebody else to do it, through to a professional single woman who wants to prove to her male colleagues that she’s no dumb bimbo, not to mention the country women who are located miles from the nearest service station and don’t have much choice. You’ve got good authority for working on your car, too. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II once trained as a mechanic when she was Princess Elizabeth during World War II (to set a good example to all the other women of England at the time), and a rumour is circulating that once, when the royal Daimler broke down, she had a rummage under the hood for herself, presumably having removed her white kid gloves first.
So what are the basic car maintenance tasks that every woman can do? In a nutshell, you can do everything the guys can do – except that the average woman probably will find it a little harder to get a big Land Rover or other 4×4 up on the jack to get the tyre off.
- Change the oil. If you can unscrew a cap and pour a liquid from a bottle, you can do this one for yourself.
- Top up the fluids. Again, this is a case of checking levels, unscrewing lids and pouring the right liquids into the right places. Not hard and doesn’t require brute strength. All you have to do is remember to do it.
- Changing the air filter. Again, this isn’t hard to do – remembering to do it is the hard part.
- Changing (and rotating) the tyres. While getting a flattie in the rain and not knowing what to do turns you into a damsel in distress that might bring along a knight in shining armour on a white horse (probably a Mitsubishi Colt these days or a car with a horse in the logo if you’re very, very lucky), it also makes you vulnerable to jerks who might try claiming a form of compensation for helping you that you really don’t want to give. You might still get offers of help even if you know what you’re doing, but a cheery “Cheers, mate; I’m all right, thanks,” is a lot more satisfying, and a firm grip on a hefty adjustable spanner is a good deterrent to potential marauders. Practice changing the tyres by rotating them when you should. To be on the safe side, limp to a moderately busy road when you pull over to change a flat tyre rather than doing it down an obscure side alley.
The thing that most people find hard about car maintenance is remembering to do it. But if you’re already managing to schedule kids’ school trips, work deadlines, hairdresser appointments, pet vaccinations and a social life, you already have the systems in place for remembering it – it’s a case of scribbling in “oil change for Suzuki Swift” alongside “Damien’s birthday” or “Worm cats” on your calendar.
In Praise Of Slower Driving
Cars are designed to go fast, which is why they took over from horse-drawn transport and bicycles on the road. All modern cars, even the most sluggish and cumbersome, are capable of travelling at a speed that was once considered impossible – about 150 or so years ago, before the advent of the railway, it was believed by the scientific authorities that humans would suffocate if they travelled over 30 mph (about 48 km/h).
However, while modern cars can go three times this “fatal” speed with ease and some makes sold in Australia have their speeds limited (e.g. certain makes of BMW), we don’t always have to go as fast as we possibly can. Sometimes, there’s something to be said about driving a bit more slowly. So what can be said in favour of going slower?
1 It’s safer. Sure, cars have all the safety features that the engineers can think of, but sheer physics will win the day. If you lose control in spite of the ABS, ESP and all the rest of it, and smack into something solid, all that energy will be transferred to your car’s body and to your body. Carnage. This is why speed limits exist, why powerful cars are speed limited and why the cops get so snippy about leadfooted drivers.
2 You use less fuel. Again, it’s a matter of physics. The faster you go, the more energy is needed to get your car to that speed and to keep you there. And this energy comes from petrol or diesel, even in a hybrid vehicle such as the Toyota Prius. Slow down and you save money.
3 You put less stress on your car’s mechanics. Physics again – at higher speeds, more force is needed to alter the vehicle’s velocity – and the velocity changes when you change direction as well as when you slow down or speed up. Change the velocity aggressively or assertively, and this does increase the wear and tear on the tyres, the brake pads, the steering mechanism, etc.
4 When you’re in an unfamiliar place, you can find your way a bit more easily. It’s easy to miss landmarks and road signs – and that includes signs such as speed limits and arrows – when you’re going at a fair clip. How many times have you been barrelling along looking for a particular road only to miss your turning because by the time you had read the signpost and recognised the street name, you’d overshot?
5 To quote an old proverb, galloping horsemen see no flowers. If you are always in a hurry, you often miss some of the beautiful and interesting things around you. The truth of this old saw is often proved by people driving around Perth during June–November: take it slowly and you can appreciate the famous wildflowers; rush and they’re just a blur. And this doesn’t just apply to rural driving in the lusher parts of Western Australia – it also applies in downtown Sydney. If you take it at a more leisurely pace, you get a chance to notice things you wouldn’t otherwise – a small boutique or café, a quirky mural or an attractive/interesting looking person.
Sure, there are times when we have to make the most of the speed that our cars have on offer. And there are times when it’s fun to go faster (but within the speed limits!). But at times, it doesn’t hurt to slow down and enjoy the drive, as well as driving more safely and frugally.
Level 2, 9 Help Street