Driving in Melbourne

[Bdazla]

Originally Posted by fantz

lol wtf ?

i agree with blackls.

[Professor Farnsworth]

Originally Posted by Bdazla

i agree with blackls.

ok, well speaking for yourself i guess then fair enough.. i had no problem driving in syd for 2 years, as i said it wasn't far different to Melbourne..

Originally Posted by fantz

ok, well speaking for yourself i guess then fair enough.. i had no problem driving in syd for 2 years, as i said it wasn't far different to Melbourne..

Thats fine, and I'm not bagging out Mexicans at all ;). Car-orientated people tend to be really good with directions and the lay of the land. What I'm talking about is a general cross section of peak hour drivers, from both cities.

And OZJavelin, I agree with what your saying.

going to have to go against the grain here re:brisbane. (mind you was years ago). probably the most brain dead drivers I have encountered, and I did not find it a relaxed laid back lifestyle relating to driving, most hooned around (probably ex pat vics like myself) ;).

i think melbourne is a surpurbly laid out city, with great infrastructure, and the public transport system is IMO world class as far as commuting from way out suburbs to CBD

as for taxi drivers, go to asia, malaysia in particular, no rules, no anything (well there is but just not obvious), just a million cars/bikes all going different directions at the same time at intersections and talk about up close and personal, car from us was like 1 cm from the side mirrors... crazy but fun.

i guess it comes down to what you know about and how you feel confident in your own area/city best.

sydney was interesting, could not for the live of me get of this highway off ramp into another freeway, just went around 3-4 times in a circle before I could get off was funny was awhile ago, cant remember where it occurred, but was heading up to coffs

loved the double decker trains.... small things like that amuse me ;)

[Aussie_Geo]

Ha Ha maybe its just me but there is something fundamentally wrong when you have light vehicles and Trains (Melbourne Trams) sharing the same road with no physical seperation. :gren:

thank god I only visit once in awhile

Peter

[OLDFORDNUT]

coming from Melbourne 17 years ago,and driving in Brisbane once a month or so,i miss Melbourne,simple square based grid layout so you know where you are roughly from city no matter how far out you are,its the best system in Australia by far,Hook turns are quite simple once you are in the mix,last time i visited in 2000 good freeway system that lets you get to one side of city suburbs to the other side in very good time compared to when i lived there (grew up)in 70's and 80's.my old man keeps telling me its a s&thole with the current and last governments,but it was always great to be able to go to the beach or to mountains with wonderful green parks and swimming in less than an hour.
yes i miss Melbourne,and anyone coming from Sydney who hangs it on Vic road system and drivers must be in lala land.
cheers Nick

[sickxr]

I spend my annual leave down in melbourne and then stopped in at sydney on the way back (from brisbane) over christmas and i reckon melbourne roads are unreal! All thoes ring roads you have down there makes getting around the city very quick!!

[OzJavelin]

Sydney, once you know the roads and behaviour of traffic, driving isn't too bad.

I'm sure this applies to EVERY large city. If you know where you are going and how to get there, it takes the majority of the frustration out of travelling. You can handle people cutting you off, etc because you know what you are doing. I'm sure the negative responses against either Melb or Syd are posted only because people know one place better than the other.
I've only driven in Sydney a handful of times and I avoid driving in Melb as much as I can - I'm from regional Vic - but I think the habitually bad drivers (other than taxi drivers!!) come from outside Metro areas. People living in country and regional areas drive fine in "relaxed" conditions that they are used to, but mostly cannot drive in mildly conjested areas. (Yes, this includes me too .. )
People in Metro areas mostly get used to driving in difficult situations and percentage wise appear pretty good at it. They can park cars in tight spots, can navigate in changed conditions, can accept sitting in traffic jams, etc. Country folk can drive long distances on deserted roads, but usually cannot "interact" with other drivers well. Try driving into any larger regional town (eg. Bendigo, Ballarat, etc) at 5pm on a weekday and see the chaos as unsocialable drivers attempt to push their way thru a non-existant peak hour ..

[XRchic]

Driving in Melbourne doesnt bother me. It is different to driving in Adelaide, thats for sure, but its not that bad. I dont know why people whine about hook turns and traffic. Its just life. You go to a city and just deal with things there. There are always rude drivers in every city, there are bad taxi drivers, dodgy roads, complicated systems of streets and I guess you just get used to it the more you do it.

Melbourne is by far not the worst city I have ever driven in.

[NEG]

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[scottyg]

Hook turns were first introduced to stop blocking trams at intersections. If you look at Kyro_2 post u can see the tram tracks running thru the intersection. If you are waiting off 2 the left, to go right, trams can still get thru the intersection. The original theory was that one car = one driver (and maybe one passenger) but one tram = 100 passengers - so who should get the right of way ?????????????????

[BroncosXR8]

I spent a year in Melbourne, and I drove a 1978 LTD you know the one with the Rolls Royce grill, now there roughly about the same size as the QEII, and found driving in Melbourne pretty good actually. I originally come from Townsville where people take half an hour to decide what there going to next, whereas I found most in Melbourne even if they didnt know where they were going went anyway, so they didnt block traffic (if that makes sense). So I found that people were assertive in the way they drive. The hook turns threw me at first too, however once you see other people do it, you grasp the concept fairly quickly.
I do agree on the taxi's though, if you can, stay out of them! Did you know it was the same price for a Limo as a taxi from the Airport - Hint take Limo.

[qwigybo]

i try to avoid driving in melb as much as possible it is chaotic, as soon as i get past calder park maccas it's time to get into race driver mode. And i'm always getting lost everytime i go there different suburb guaranteed everytime i'm gonna get lost at least once, especially when people don't allow you to merge into the lane you need to turn off from
As dad told me when i first got my license, "it doesn't matter how good u may be, everyone is out to get you, especially the bloody kangaroos"

[Mechan1k]

After the AU Picnic Day ... I realised how bad Melbourne drivers really are.
I thought Sydney drivers were bad .... especially the turbin-charged (tm) taxi drivers. But they serious drive like saints compared to Melbournians.

I was lucky ... I had a GPS on me ... so i could navigate Melbourne city with ease.
But I couldn't believe the amount of people they drove "between" lanes ... and tried to push between parked cars and yourself ... and then try and push in.

In the end though I had to force myself to really fend for myself ... cannot use polite driving in Melbourne ... so i have to revert to Sydney city driving tactics.

You have to fight the pushing in tactics with more bluff ... and blocking tactics.

Maybe it was the NSW nuberplate on the ute ... thinking that they could try anything on me when driving in Melbourne. I learnt quickly.

Being a courier in Sydney has already charged me with a few skills to tackle wayward/meandering traffic and drivers that seriously have no idea ... so that came in handy as well.

Taxi drivers are given the respect that they deserve - in other words "NONE AT ALL". The look of shock on some of their faces when they realised they couldn't get "their" way in traffic.

Also horn and driving lights came in handy many a time.

I felt much safer when i returned back to Sydney ... it was a more relaxed environment indeed.

[nobbystang]

Growing up in country Vic I found Melbourne daunting the first few times but once used to it not bad. Having lived and driven through a few states i have to say Perth has the best layout of roads anywhere in Australia but i could always navigate around Melbourne generally without a map book, Sydney forget about it. If you're comfortable driving in Melbourne, you can drive anywhere in Aus.

I noticed a big change in the attitude of drivers in Melbourne after coming back having lived in Perth for 3-4 years(00-03), where 20+ above limit was norm, doing speed limit when i got back found I was passing most cars on the road, was weird. The only drama driving in Perth is everyone thinks its there right to be in the right lane. left lane is generally free, must be a novelty to them to have the option of a second lane