The Comedy that is St Mary's Bay

[Kiwi XTR2]

For those of you who haven't driven around Auckland, St Mary's Bay has a short length of gently twisting 8-lane motorway that joins the CBD to the Harbour Bridge.

While rush hour commuters are generally not bad (by Auckland standards) those that traverse this stretch of road in the wee-smalls never cease to amaze, regularly amuse, and occasionally frightened me.

There is a particular set that seem to be able to:
A) Drive in their lane around the curves; or
B) Change lanes on the straights.

But they absolutely cannot:
C) Change lanes while on the curves ! ! !

Why is that?

There's plenty of room, very little traffic, it's well lit . . .

I quite regularly see people have 2 or 3 attempts at a lane change. They indicate right, start to move right, but then as they enter a right-hand curve they end up drifting back to the lane they started in

There is also the other kind who indulge in a sudden over-correct when they realize they're about to do 3 lane changes when they only intended 2.

The really funny ones come on in lane 1 (@ Fanshawe Street) and, despite all kinds of signage that lanes 3 - 5 are closed, move straight out to lane 4, around a few curves then slam on the brakes and cut left as they are presented with rows of cones.

Does this happen elsewhere or is St Mary's Bay special ?

In a 'special needs' kind of way

[Esprit]

I thought it was only me that noticed that... and no, it's not only St Mary's , another place where it's evident is at the top of the Bombays, especially on the northbound side. I think it's more evident when the road's wider, you've less visual cues (walls) to judge your prpgress across lanes.... although I'd imagine that on any road there's the potential for this.

I've never had a problem with it so I guess it's just another numpty trait.

[Murdock]

I had noticed this puzzling phenomenon too. The majority of people try to just stick to a given lane and pretend the rest simply don't exist. Was trailing a car one night (at a distance, before anyone asks) and the driver, initially in the extreme right hand lane, made a B-line for the extreme left hand lane upon approaching the bridge (northbound). In doing so, he managed to momentarily turn off his lights, indicate both directions, and I'm fairly sure I heard the faint beep of horn. I can but guess at what was going on inside the car itself.

[jamieheasman]

Heading into town just after the bridge - the roads does tighten a bit and you can see lots of newcomers thinking they'll plant it and start overtaking only to think they've made a terrible mistake!