Kia ora (part 2). The day I nearly died.

When you’re young you inevitably dream of having a job that involves international travel. I did. I wanted to jet set all over the place doing stuff. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but whatever it was I wanted to jet set all over the world doing ‘it’. It was one of the questions that I asked in interviews after Uni. 

‘Can I jet set all over the place doing stuff?’ 

I didn’t get too many job offers. 

And then one day - mid-jet set - you suddenly realise that jet-setting is rubbish. It hits you that the emphasis in ‘jet setting all over the place doing stuff’ is heavily skewed towards the ‘doing stuff’ bit, and not the jet setting bit. Traveling for work is more about the ‘work’ than the ‘travel’. 

Once you realise this you can’t go back. You start to hate travelling for work. Once you realise that travelling for work involves living in hotels, working in strange offices where you don’t know many people and the ‘big one’, the thing that no-one warns you about, that no-one tells you about when you ask if you can jet set all over the place doing stuff ... room service. 

Room service is great when you’re on holiday. Or away with a loved one. Then room service is the best thing since sliced bread. Then it’s better than sliced bread. But when you're travelling with work, room service is the pits. The absolute pits. It’s sad and lonely. And you always order the wrong thing. Always. When you’re on your own, sitting on the bed in your hotel room looking at the room service menu with CNN on mute, you always order the steak. With mushroom sauce and carrots. And you always regret it when it arrives. The carrots always look like they're made of orange plastic.

My epiphany about just how rubbish jet-setting can be came in New Zealand. 

I was in Wellington. The big epiphany had nothing to do with New Zealand, or with Wellington. I could just as well have been in Paris or Timbuktu. It had nothing to do with the hotel either. I was staying in the Intercontinental, no less. For three months. Three months in a posh hotel. It sounds incredibly jet-setty. It wasn’t. It was boring. And lonely. I lived off room service. Three months is a lot of steaks. I was moo-ing by the end of it.

Being a positive kind of chap I decided not to mope around. I'm not a moper. I resolved to pep myself up. It was time to leave the comfort of my queen-sized bed, the soothing sounds of the CNN news crew and the inevitable steak with mushroom sauce and plastic carrots. I was all alone in New Zealand and NZ’s a notoriously big place. There was exploring to be done.

So I hired a car. The North Island of NZ was at my mercy. All 268,680 square kilometres of it. I had the whole weekend ahead of me. I planned to give the place a right good nudge.

I didn’t. 

I gave another car a right good nudge.

I turned out of the car hire place, drove 100 meters up the main road and came to a crossroads. I stopped. And looked. And look some more. I was turning left. The car opposite me was turning right. Into my lane. He was turning across the traffic and into my lane. I had right of way. Obviously. I turned. He turned. We crashed. I almost died. Of shock.

I have never seen anyone quite as angry as the chap who’d turned across the junction into my lane and into me. He was livid. Absolutely livid. I wasn't livid. I was too shocked to be livid. Some idiot had just turned right across a junction when I clearly had right of way. I was speechless. He wasn’t. He was full of words. Most of them unrepeatable on a humble little blog like this.

To my relief I had a witness. The bloke behind me at the junction was already out of his car and walking towards me ... and towards Mr Livid. Ha-haaa my old mate you’d better calm down there’s two of us now. Two sane, rational people, both of whom can in fact drive and do in fact know the basic rules of the road. When you arrive at a crossroads and your turning left into the near side of the traffic you have right of way.

Not in New Zealand you don’t. 

Maybe in every other country on the planet - and on every other inhabited planet in the known Universe. And beyond. But not in New Zealand.

I’ll repeat that. Not in New Zealand. 

In New Zealand at crossroads, the car on the far side - the car turning right, the car turning across two lanes of traffic - has right of way. That car is legally allowed to ‘go’ first. You have to give way to that car. 

In NZ car 2 in the picture has right of way. Yep really!

I discovered all this from Mr Livid and the bloke from the car behind me. My Livid was screaming it at me whilst the bloke from the car behind me was attempting to calm him down, whilst calmly explaining that in New Zealand the car turning across the traffic has the right of way.

I’ll give you a moment to think about how stupid that road rule is.

(tick tock tick tock...)

Even Mr Livid admitted it was a stupid rule. He was still livid mind you. Of course, I was now just as livid. With whoever had made that rule. It was quite obviously someone who had never driven a car - or a bike - in his or her life. 

My driving days were over. At least in that car. It was going no-where, and neither was I. Not on roads with rules like that. I spent the rest of my time in New Zealand in Wellington and Wellington only. It turned out to be a great place. I heartily recommend a trip across The Tasman. Remember to pack a tie (click here to see why!) and leave everything you’ve ever learnt about who has right of way at crossroads at home. The tie will be needed. A tie is essential. Common sense at crossroads won’t and isn't.

Pip pip

Footnote - would you Adam and Eve it!? On 25th March 2012 the Kiwi's finally decided that giving way to the car that is crossing two lanes and turning into the traffic wasn't working for them. (I think they added up all the accidents that it has caused over the years). So, they scrapped it and fell in line with the rest of the world. Just like that. They changed. I imagine it caused chaos. Changing road rules across an entire nation can be a bit scary! But not quite as scary as driving in New Zealand when rules like that were in place. Thank god they saw sense!!

Hope you had a super weekend.