Your Going the WRONG WAY!!

Ahhh! I am starting to lose the urge to shout that to all of the other drivers driving on the wrong/I mean left side of the road. As many people told me, hang in there it will be like second nature to you soon. It is. I think. I still have to repeat what my friend Cristin taught me, left turn easy right turn hard. I still have to think, which I guess I really should have been doing all along while driving. AND I still think it is the wrong side, I will tell you why 70-90% of the world's population is right side dominant... and....I found this our today doing research for this sophisticated highly factual blog 2/3 of the population is right eye dominant. So, to drive in the left side requires you take in alot of information on the side that is not dominant for you and is really far away now, (more than likely your a rightie, unless you are Pete Montaigne) I find this to be true when trying to judge the space on the left side of the car. Am I about to hit those parked cars or am I going to be in oncoming traffic? Hard to tell, but important to know. I have started checking my side mirrors and if I can see the lines, behind me, I am good! Who knows whats coming ahead but I am center in the lane!

So, a few things, the speed limit here is how they like for you to keep the swings at My Gym, low and slow.   Real Slow, the speed limit on most freeways is 80 KM  or 50 mph sometimes you can really fly at 100 km or 62 mph. The side streets are generally 40km - 25 mph or 50 31mph or a racy 60km 37 mph. There is no secret speeding they have speed cameras everywhere and you can lose your license for speeding. It is a non aggressive driving culture which makes being a new driver here alot easier. When you use your blinker people actually let you in/over and other drivers generally use their own signals! The blinker is not universally on the right, our Ford rental has it on the right but we test drove another Ford model that had it on the left b/c it was made in Germany? This is another confusing part of wrongside driving I often turn on the wipers on the left when I am trying to indicate I am turning, then I get flustered can't get the wipers off, water sometimes discharges to clean the window, I don't signal my turn and basically f it all up. I do this at least once every trip. argh.
Petrol is by the liter and very expensive, but cheaper mid week than weekends, and you know when someone has a good price because the line can be 10 cars deep.
Cars are also very expensive with a Range Rover and BMW X5 running about 200K. Of course, we bought 2.
The El Camino is alive and well in OZ, the 70's dilema of do I need a car or a truck must still be a pressing one here because this trar(truck/car) is everywhere.
Trucks and El Caminos are called UTE's. El Caminos official name is coup utility vehicle, cute.You may think a road is 4 lanes but watch out the left hand lane maybe used for parking, not off to the side so you can get around, but SURPRISE just right there where you were just driving so you better pray your brakes work and there is no one on the right cuz you are going to swerve city! Swerving ala defensive driving school style. I can not seem to get over this one, it just seems crazy. Do you remember that silly joke about why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway? Well this parking on the street is like that bad joke come to life. I attached a pic.

Pedestrians are lucky to be breathing the same air as cars and don't you forget it! You only have the right away when the light up sign turns green starts beeping and tells you to run like hell and then it is still up to you to wave away any oncoming cars. At roundabouts forget it, you can stand forever until some kind and probably foreign soul waves you through. When this happens run like hell because the person in the egg sized 2 door, 3 cars back is going to be honking any minute, and all involved will have to be embarrassed at such a public display of emotion.

Honking is frowned upon and is only used in EXTREME situations, like when the Woolies truck got stuck on a little two lane side road and held up traffic on the big road, some people honked but most just acted like it was totally normal to be at a dead stop for like 10 minutes with an 18 wheeler perpendicular to the road. Also note, if you are honked at, for the love of THE QUEEN and all things decent act like you can not hear anything and nothing is out of the ordinary, reacting to the honk would be almost as shameful as honking!

I think I have mentioned before but backing in and parallel parking are national pastimes, seriously  Australia is trying to add them the Commonwealth Games. 

Can you tell if this car is driving or parking?

This one?

Random pic! Beautiful Wild Cockatoos are everywhere!