Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

A lot has been said about tourist drivers and whether or not they are a threat, or more of a danger than the already large percentage of idiot drivers that already live here.

One thing is becoming clear – the tourist driving test idea while well-meaning is a knee-jerk reaction and probably won't actually work.

Most tourists already know and understand the rules; they would probably fly through the test.

What I believe is the problem: A few days later, while they're relaxed and cruising the highways and byways, some forget to keep left.

That cannot be sorted with a driving test on day one of their holiday.

One suggestion that makes a lot of sense is from Trevor Knight, interviewed by Merle Foster this week in the Peninsula Sun. Trevor sees the problem from a unique perspective – he's a rural delivery driver, who also runs a B&B at Hotwater Beach (not far from the horrific fatal crash at the weekend) and is involved in the tourism industry.
He can see both sides of the issue – as a professional driver on the road a lot of the day, in a high tourist traffic area – and host of foreign tourists.

Keep left

He says NZ needs some sort of signage with basic wording that simply says ‘Tourists Keep Left'.

Moving to the peninsula in 1999, Trevor spent two years getting council and NZTA to paint white arrows near Coromandel's one-way bridges.

'It's because there's not much traffic and they take-off on the wrong side and they meet someone, and have a mishap.”

Trevor says online testing to rental vehicle drivers isn't going to achieve anything and may discourage international visitors.

'It's simply a lack of concentration at a particular time; even if they do a test, they will still lose their concentration when they look at a view or something.

'Then they'll think ‘oh, we have to do these tests to drive' – so we don't want to be discouraging tourists, but we need better signage in areas like the Coromandel.”
Trevor's even seen a procession of campervans follow each other the wrong way around a roundabout at Hot Water Beach. 'We couldn't believe it, they just followed like sheep.”

Testing times

Here at RR headquarters, some commentators have raised the question, would Kiwis tolerate being tested overseas, for instance, having to sit a driving test in Paris? My answer to that is simple: I wouldn't even try to drive in France.

Have been there twice, and there's no way my brain could get itself re-adjusted to driving on the wrong side of the road. Besides, the French are maniacs.

We were lucky to have an experienced Englishman driver on both occasions, but that didn't stop the crazed French having a crack at us, just on spying the British plates.

Standing down

The other issue facing tourist drivers in NZ is fatigue. We are a long way…from anywhere. Jumping off a plane after 36 or so hours in the air, getting in a rental vehicle and heading off.

There's probably nowhere else in the civilised world, which takes so long to get to. And when we say civilised, we are not necessarily including Huntly.

There should be a stand-down period of 48 hours before a foreigner, getting off a flight, can be let loose on our roads.

The police already hammer the 'tired driver” message to us locals, why should foreigners stepping off a plane be considered in a fit state to drive?

There's also been a very simplistic reaction from some police and officials, to the foreign driver crash statistics. They say tourists are involved in six per cent and are not over-represented.

That may well be the case. But even one is too many. It doesn't make it right to then ignore the foreign driver component.

If there's a way to solve any road crash threat, in no matter what sector, take it. So what if tourist driver crashes are, say halved? If we can take some steps to get a result that tourist drivers are half as likely to cause a crash as locals, surely that's a win-win for everyone? Any life-saving action is worth taking, no matter how it is achieved.

Excuses for bad driving -

Only in America: When the officer pulled the car over and asked the girl why she hadn't stopped, she told him she had just had her brakes repaired and it was so expensive that she didn't want to wear them down.

'My wife ran off with a state policeman and when I saw your flashing lights I didn't stop because I thought you might be the trooper trying to bring her back.”

One day I was driving to school and I was late for classes. I was stopped by a policeman who said to me: 'I've been waiting for you all day”. I replied: 'I got here as fast as I could officer!”

In Ohio, an officer pulled over a car for speeding and questioned the young lady why she wasn't wearing her seatbelt. She told him she was an exotic dancer and the seatbelt pinched her nipple rings and hurt.

A woman, eight months pregnant, had two kids fighting in the back seat of the car. A policeman pulled her over for an expired licence. 'I told him to just take me to jail, I needed the rest.”

An elderly gent driving in the wrong direction on a one-way street was pulled over. The officer exclaimed: 'Sir, do you realise you're on a one-way street?” To which the gentleman replied: 'I sure do officer and I'm only going one way”.

Another case: 'Sir, do you know you are driving down the interstate the wrong way?” He says: 'How do you know? You don't know where I live!”

'I'm a police officer in Detroit. Several years ago I stopped a car for going the wrong way on a one-way street.

After talking to the driver, who was obviously intoxicated, I asked him if he saw the arrows.

He said he didn't even see the Indians.”