Go left to turn right

So one of the topics I'd thought of in my long, boring meeting was driving on the opposite side of the road.  At the time of my meeting [three-ish weeks ago], I had noted to myself that I was finally getting comfortable with driving on the "wrong" side of the street.  At this point, six weeks in our journey, I would say I've definitely gotten the hang of it.  I've even managed to stop drifting to the left, wanting to put myself over the left side of the lane.  What continues to get me is unmarked car parks [parking lots].  Of all places, if I make a mistake, it's right after I've backed out of a spot and have to make a quick lane change.

Fortunately, what has helped with getting adjusted to driving on the left is the amount of paint they've put on the street.  At a good 75% of intersections, they've painted lines guiding each lane through the intersection - and the bigger the intersection, the more chances there are it's going to have guidelines and the more guidelines there will be.  And at almost all intersections, there's a little sign with an arrow that says "Keep left".  Those help.  A lot.  When first getting used to being over here, I got most nervous at intersections.  Those lines made it better.

What made it way worse, though, was the lack of clearly marked streets.  Road signs here, in some instances, might as well be non existent.  Sure, a lot of streets are actually marked - and some are even marked well - but the majority of them will have a little tiny sign on the corner.  And usually that sign is buried in a mix of building signs or other tourist signs.  It's like having a little Where's Waldo game every time you come to an intersection.  The other day, we were stopped at an intersection, looking around, and we noticed that the intersecting street was, once again, poorly marked.  Instead, what was much more visible was a sign that was constructed and printed like a street sign that read "Blood Donors".  Sure, I'm excited that if I want to donate blood, I can just follow a street marker.  But if I needed to turn on Flinders, and that was Flinders, and I missed it because I lost that block's Where's Waldo challenge ... well ... okay, so it's not so bad to miss one street.  But it doesn't stop the annoyance when you're trying to avoid getting lost.

Of all the street signs, the one that was the newest to us, and the most confusing was the sign for the hook turn.  Ruthie had even read about this magical traffic maneuver before we arrived, and she was still befuddled.  In sections of the CBD, there are places where you have to move over to the left side of the left lane in the middle of an intersection, with your right turn signal on, and wait until the traffic lights change before you can go.  And not like in NJ, where you have an entire off-ramp lane dedicated to making the turn across traffic.  You're actually blocking an intersection. Confused?  Yeah. Here's the street sign [from Wikipedia]:

But, I think I get it now.  It makes sense, in a way, as to how it reduces congestion [at times], and prevents blocking tram tracks.  But that certainly doesn't make it any less confusing at times.  So far, I would say I've successfully made three hook turns.  The first time I was supposed to do one, I completely ignored it because I was in the wrong lane and there was no traffic [or trams] around me.

So next up will be getting used to my motorcycle on this side of the street.  There is an entire different set of rules that seem to apply to motorbikes here, and I'm actually really excited to try them out - but that's a different post.

Happy turning!

-EP