So, whats driving in Aus like ?
Discussion
How about a general chat about the car scene in Australia?
As I regular visitor to Sydney and Melbourne ( but not a resident ) I must admit that I get the impression that it can be harder to be a petrolhead down there.
A couple of friends of mine have settled in and around Sydney, and I must admit that although they once had petrol in their veins, it seems to have been replaced with some of the fine wines you have there !
A mate of mine was into Caterhams and stuff - moved to Sydney to live with his Aussie girl, and he now drives an X -trail ( an automatic one, too
)
Why is this? Is it because of the speed cameras and that everyone seems to drive pretty slow?
I suspect it might be better out of the large cities. Or do the cops ruin it ?
As I regular visitor to Sydney and Melbourne ( but not a resident ) I must admit that I get the impression that it can be harder to be a petrolhead down there.
A couple of friends of mine have settled in and around Sydney, and I must admit that although they once had petrol in their veins, it seems to have been replaced with some of the fine wines you have there !
A mate of mine was into Caterhams and stuff - moved to Sydney to live with his Aussie girl, and he now drives an X -trail ( an automatic one, too
) Why is this? Is it because of the speed cameras and that everyone seems to drive pretty slow?
I suspect it might be better out of the large cities. Or do the cops ruin it ?
well here's the real story :
scameras, plenty of them but this country is so huge that you will get away with speeding if you use your brain and not the right foot ALL the time....go to a party and see how many guys will admit they were screamin gdown the freeway or on a straight stretch of road in the outback.
The Northern Territory has no speed limits and has reasonable roads but even 300+ kph gets a bit boring after a while and if you hit a roo or buffalo at those speeds then trust me, SPEED KILLS!!
I have driven over most of Australia bar Tasmania (I failed to produce a passport with two heads!!) and have found that the cops can be put into two baskets :
solo cop can be reasonable person who most likely will let you off if you don't give them sh!t when pulled over for speeding.
Duo cop WILL book you as he is working with another Nazi and they are generally the city cops who are Nazis whether alone or in tow with fellow Nazi. These are the hwy patrol cops who even the other cops hate (I have a couple of relatives in the police force - not hwy patrol obviosly!)
I have been driving here for 32 years and been speeding excessively for ALL that time and naturally lost my license under the points ssytem 13 times so to me this proves that they are not about stopping people killing themselves but about the money!!
I had never had an accident until 6 months ago when I rolled the 308 at 87 in a 100 zone due to the car aquaplaning (nothing you can do about that), done several advanced driver courses as well as race driver course with Frank Gardiner (he won a few BTCC race championships or something ) and exercised the Ferrari and BMers on several tracks to improve driving ability, ...this holds no water when they book you for 70 kph in a 50kph zone but allow drunks to drive home and old codgers to keep their licenses when they drive straight through red lights and everyone has to miss them!! me, bitter and pi55ed off about a few fines ??!! never !!
I was born in Sydney and can say that the standard of driving has steadily dropped since automatics became the norm rather than the exception and also more women have been driving on the road (I know this sounds sexist but when they are on the freeway and doing their lipstick and hair in the mirror when suppose to be driving a 1-2 ton slow speed bullet ??!!).
Mind you, if I owned an insurance firm I'd only insure women as they are overly cautious and cause more accidents than they are involved
We get a lot of interesting cars here but you rarely ever see them except for special occasions and a mate of mine owned the very first ALFA ROMEO G1 (also the only one in existance), he was a seargent in the RAAf with me and it took a long time before he would talk to me on the same leve l as he reckoned I only appreciated modern cars.
Anyway, if anyone would like some info on what to see or where to go in Oz drop me a line.
John
scameras, plenty of them but this country is so huge that you will get away with speeding if you use your brain and not the right foot ALL the time....go to a party and see how many guys will admit they were screamin gdown the freeway or on a straight stretch of road in the outback.
The Northern Territory has no speed limits and has reasonable roads but even 300+ kph gets a bit boring after a while and if you hit a roo or buffalo at those speeds then trust me, SPEED KILLS!!
I have driven over most of Australia bar Tasmania (I failed to produce a passport with two heads!!) and have found that the cops can be put into two baskets :
solo cop can be reasonable person who most likely will let you off if you don't give them sh!t when pulled over for speeding.
Duo cop WILL book you as he is working with another Nazi and they are generally the city cops who are Nazis whether alone or in tow with fellow Nazi. These are the hwy patrol cops who even the other cops hate (I have a couple of relatives in the police force - not hwy patrol obviosly!)
I have been driving here for 32 years and been speeding excessively for ALL that time and naturally lost my license under the points ssytem 13 times so to me this proves that they are not about stopping people killing themselves but about the money!!
I had never had an accident until 6 months ago when I rolled the 308 at 87 in a 100 zone due to the car aquaplaning (nothing you can do about that), done several advanced driver courses as well as race driver course with Frank Gardiner (he won a few BTCC race championships or something ) and exercised the Ferrari and BMers on several tracks to improve driving ability, ...this holds no water when they book you for 70 kph in a 50kph zone but allow drunks to drive home and old codgers to keep their licenses when they drive straight through red lights and everyone has to miss them!! me, bitter and pi55ed off about a few fines ??!! never !!
I was born in Sydney and can say that the standard of driving has steadily dropped since automatics became the norm rather than the exception and also more women have been driving on the road (I know this sounds sexist but when they are on the freeway and doing their lipstick and hair in the mirror when suppose to be driving a 1-2 ton slow speed bullet ??!!).
Mind you, if I owned an insurance firm I'd only insure women as they are overly cautious and cause more accidents than they are involved
We get a lot of interesting cars here but you rarely ever see them except for special occasions and a mate of mine owned the very first ALFA ROMEO G1 (also the only one in existance), he was a seargent in the RAAf with me and it took a long time before he would talk to me on the same leve l as he reckoned I only appreciated modern cars.
Anyway, if anyone would like some info on what to see or where to go in Oz drop me a line.
John
This is just a Pom's Eye View of driving around Sydney. Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin all have their specific bits of fun too.
Driving around Sydney can be an excrutiating pain in the arse. It can be hot, humid and slow. That’s why a lot of people use the overloaded trains and buses. Its not entirely different to driving around Birmingham or Manchester, apart from the obvious lack of freezing fog, and it’s a lot prettier in places. But there are a few possible complications.
First up are the traffic lights. The colours mean the same but if you are allowed to turn right there may not be a filter lane. Just watch as the numpty in front of you waits until you’re right behind him and can’t pull into moving traffic in the left hand lane, before they put their right indicator on and sit there waiting for a gap.
And they will just sit there. Edging out into the traffic to turn right is just not cricket, try it and you can expect beeps and people swerving around you, but at no time can you expect someone to just ease off a little while you shoot across. Even if they’ve got to stop 10m past you, or the traffic is crawling along. I’ve had buses swerve across to the other side rather than slow down a bit and let me across.
As and when you finally get to make a turn on a traffic light, watch out, because at the same time pedestrians get their green light to cross. As a pedestrian you don’t take much notice of this, but it’s annoying and more than a bit dangerous if you don’t know about it. Especially if the first time you drive around the city is in a 10-tonne truck...
Taxis. If you’ve been in one you’ve got a bit of a clue, but they can do what they like, when they like how they like, even if it means stopping in the middle of a junction to pick up a fare. Just think BMW driver in the UK.
Many junctions in this city’s sprawling road network allow no right turns, just as many other cities across the planet, maybe because it’s a one-way system, or it’s a tight bend or because traffic planners are in cahoots with the tourism office and want you to take a 12km detour of parts of the city you never knew existed all whilst trying to read the road map provided by the hire-car company.
But best of all are the timed no-right-turns. You’ll know these because you’ll swear at them every time you want to use one. As you approach the junction you’ll see a no-right-turn sign, so you head for straight on. But just as you get to the junction you’ll spot the smaller sign underneath. This smaller sign will inform you, in letters no more than a few inches high, that you can turn right here between certain hours. Frantically you try to find the clock in the car to see if you within the time. But it no longer matters, you’re now going too fast to make the turn and the car behind wants to get in your boot. So it’s the 12km detour for you.
And don’t rely on road signs to be too much help. Sure they’ll tell you the direction, but only when you get to the junction and discover you’ve got 25m to cut across three lanes of moving traffic to make the left turn. Or, the sign will be obscured by a tree, or even another road sign telling you something completely unrelated, such as “How fast are you going now?” Too fast to make my bloody turning, that’s how fast.
Once you’ve had a go, driving round the centre of Sydney isn’t terribly difficult. Its road system is sometimes unnecessarily complicated, some small foibles will thoroughly annoy you and people drive as though they’re the only ones on the road, but its not as busy as many UK cities and that’s why many of us are here in the first place.
Driving around Sydney can be an excrutiating pain in the arse. It can be hot, humid and slow. That’s why a lot of people use the overloaded trains and buses. Its not entirely different to driving around Birmingham or Manchester, apart from the obvious lack of freezing fog, and it’s a lot prettier in places. But there are a few possible complications.
First up are the traffic lights. The colours mean the same but if you are allowed to turn right there may not be a filter lane. Just watch as the numpty in front of you waits until you’re right behind him and can’t pull into moving traffic in the left hand lane, before they put their right indicator on and sit there waiting for a gap.
And they will just sit there. Edging out into the traffic to turn right is just not cricket, try it and you can expect beeps and people swerving around you, but at no time can you expect someone to just ease off a little while you shoot across. Even if they’ve got to stop 10m past you, or the traffic is crawling along. I’ve had buses swerve across to the other side rather than slow down a bit and let me across.
As and when you finally get to make a turn on a traffic light, watch out, because at the same time pedestrians get their green light to cross. As a pedestrian you don’t take much notice of this, but it’s annoying and more than a bit dangerous if you don’t know about it. Especially if the first time you drive around the city is in a 10-tonne truck...
Taxis. If you’ve been in one you’ve got a bit of a clue, but they can do what they like, when they like how they like, even if it means stopping in the middle of a junction to pick up a fare. Just think BMW driver in the UK.
Many junctions in this city’s sprawling road network allow no right turns, just as many other cities across the planet, maybe because it’s a one-way system, or it’s a tight bend or because traffic planners are in cahoots with the tourism office and want you to take a 12km detour of parts of the city you never knew existed all whilst trying to read the road map provided by the hire-car company.
But best of all are the timed no-right-turns. You’ll know these because you’ll swear at them every time you want to use one. As you approach the junction you’ll see a no-right-turn sign, so you head for straight on. But just as you get to the junction you’ll spot the smaller sign underneath. This smaller sign will inform you, in letters no more than a few inches high, that you can turn right here between certain hours. Frantically you try to find the clock in the car to see if you within the time. But it no longer matters, you’re now going too fast to make the turn and the car behind wants to get in your boot. So it’s the 12km detour for you.
And don’t rely on road signs to be too much help. Sure they’ll tell you the direction, but only when you get to the junction and discover you’ve got 25m to cut across three lanes of moving traffic to make the left turn. Or, the sign will be obscured by a tree, or even another road sign telling you something completely unrelated, such as “How fast are you going now?” Too fast to make my bloody turning, that’s how fast.
Once you’ve had a go, driving round the centre of Sydney isn’t terribly difficult. Its road system is sometimes unnecessarily complicated, some small foibles will thoroughly annoy you and people drive as though they’re the only ones on the road, but its not as busy as many UK cities and that’s why many of us are here in the first place.
Nicholas Blair said:
John
You're not near Mascot/Gardners Road by any chance.
I used to see a red 308 parked there on my travels.
Cheers
Nick
>> Edited by Nicholas Blair on Tuesday 14th September 10:22
Hi Nick,
Haven't lived near there in over 12 years, have lived on the Gold Coast for just on 10 years now .
Yeh Stin
Live on the outskirts of Perth.
Probably the worst drivers in the civilised world.
Hence traffic laws are becoming rediculously draconian in a vain attempt to reduce the road toll.
We have an excellent climate for motorcycling though and guess what. This is perhaps one of the few places where scameras photo from the front and....motorcycles don't have to have a front number plate.
I am not going to admit to exceeding the speed limit but it is possible that the authorities have some photos of my smiling face.
Some of the younger lads have spoiled it a bit by riding past the scameras at high speed doing stand up monos etc which sends the lentil munchers into a rage. I hope they burst a vein.
Live on the outskirts of Perth.
Probably the worst drivers in the civilised world.
Hence traffic laws are becoming rediculously draconian in a vain attempt to reduce the road toll.
We have an excellent climate for motorcycling though and guess what. This is perhaps one of the few places where scameras photo from the front and....motorcycles don't have to have a front number plate.
I am not going to admit to exceeding the speed limit but it is possible that the authorities have some photos of my smiling face.
Some of the younger lads have spoiled it a bit by riding past the scameras at high speed doing stand up monos etc which sends the lentil munchers into a rage. I hope they burst a vein.
rjo said:
Probably the worst drivers in the civilised world.
You obviously have'nt driven in Auckland.If you want to go fast on the highway, drive in the left(slow)lane,its empty.Plus I think they throw every new immigrant a licence to say thanks for comming!
Paul (Aucklander with a bit of tasi hence just the one head)
scruffy said:
The new 400hp Pontiac GTO is made in Melbourne and is called a Holden Monaro
They are actually built in Elizabeth on the northern outskirts of Adelaide. The Vauxhall and Pontiac versions are gonna merge into one for the next model to save money so expect just the grille badge to be different.
People in Australia fall into two camps, the V8 lovers that push two tonnes around and the jap/euro crowd that like handling and brakes that work after a couple of stops.
I'm driving to Canberra next weekend for a vortex meet/german autofest, 1600 miles there and back. If I'm still posting after I made it. Would watching vanishing point make me more or less keen though I wonder?
pombstard said:
Driving around Sydney can be an excrutiating pain in the arse.
I agree with everything here, it really takes a bit of getting used to, No right turns, Timed Right turns, straight to Green traffics lights, unsigned filter lanes etc.
You can literally spend hours trying to negotiate this until you get to know the the streets.
However, these boys are serious petrolheads - more than any other nation I know.
A few pieces of evidence.
Mad Max
real men drive Utes
their Omega has a 5.7 litre V8!!
any Monaro
any outback 4x4
no Novas
RHD american muscle cars everywhere
arrive and drive race dracks from $80(any weekday)
The V8 supercar series
V8 Brutes
you gotta love em.
ps. can't play cricket though
[quote=robinoz]no Novas
Um their actually sold here as Holden Barina's.
quote]
And the GSi-type version was one mag's Car of the Year 2002 (Wheels mag I think)
Which says it all.
Definitely straight-line petrolheads - not too bothered about the twisty bits from what I've seen. If you've ever driven a ute with a V8 engine, you'll know what I mean - corners are something to be enjoyed in other cars.
And they certainly don't know what FOOTball is
>> Edited by pombstard on Thursday 23 September 09:27
Um their actually sold here as Holden Barina's.
quote]
And the GSi-type version was one mag's Car of the Year 2002 (Wheels mag I think)
Which says it all.
Definitely straight-line petrolheads - not too bothered about the twisty bits from what I've seen. If you've ever driven a ute with a V8 engine, you'll know what I mean - corners are something to be enjoyed in other cars.
And they certainly don't know what FOOTball is
>> Edited by pombstard on Thursday 23 September 09:27
you boyz might as well get them in while the going is good as we WILL flog you lot BIG time whenever there is something of value to win at sport.
As for straight line only, please!!
Even if we do have V8 utes and 5.7 litre family cars we still like to race them on left and right turn tracks as opposed to NASCAR.
We do seem to have the only F1 driver to win the championship BUILDING his OWN car (this will NEVER happen again).
NSW use to have the best drivers until the police scameras and mobile radar has everyone looking to save their license rather than their lives and they have now become as bad as Victorian drivers who are nearly as bad as Qlders, etc, etc
The only true statement I've heard come out of a poms mouth while driving here is that the campaign against speeding here is a bloody terror campaign waged for money not lives.
The thing I found most disturbing in driving habits between here and in the UK is that we are pedestrian aware and STOP to let people walk across pedestrian crossings where you lot use them as shooting galleries
As for straight line only, please!!
Even if we do have V8 utes and 5.7 litre family cars we still like to race them on left and right turn tracks as opposed to NASCAR.
We do seem to have the only F1 driver to win the championship BUILDING his OWN car (this will NEVER happen again).
NSW use to have the best drivers until the police scameras and mobile radar has everyone looking to save their license rather than their lives and they have now become as bad as Victorian drivers who are nearly as bad as Qlders, etc, etc
The only true statement I've heard come out of a poms mouth while driving here is that the campaign against speeding here is a bloody terror campaign waged for money not lives.
The thing I found most disturbing in driving habits between here and in the UK is that we are pedestrian aware and STOP to let people walk across pedestrian crossings where you lot use them as shooting galleries
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