UK vs. New Zealand

Road markings are generally spray applied, so they wear out quickly and have no contrast to the road surface on dark and wet nights or when you are driving into the sun, although reflective studs are widely used. This road is the oddly named "No.2 Line" near Wanganui, and is a good example of the use of no overtaking lines.

Yellow lines are used for no overtaking and the line is introduced with a dashed mark (five 13m marks and 7m gaps). The no overtaking direction has yellow road studs at the same time, which is a good idea.

The provision of yellow lines appears hit-and-miss at best and you can find yourselves in a series of bends with no yellow lines, or with the yellow line on one side only. This is because double yellow lines are laid where there is only a vertical curvature of the road and not, as in the UK and elsewhere, where there is also a horizontal curvature. Here is an example of this. The two climbing lanes are OK, but the descending lane allows overtaking into the blind bend ahead. This could catch the unwary out, especially overseas visitors.

Signage is a mixture of American and European. The yellow diamond signs show up well and are easily understood, like here in SH10 in Northland. There are plenty of single lane bridges on the network which rarely, if ever, cause problems and add to the charm of driving or cycling in the country.

Note that the worded road markings are well spaced and are read in the American way, with the first word you read being the first word that you come across. This says "one lane bridge". This would read "bridge lane one" under UK standards!

A number of smaller roads and the occasional main road have no sealed surface. The last 20km of SH1 in the north is one such road. It is in the process of being re-aligned and sealed (surfaced). This is where the seal runs out and the 20km of unsealed road begins, hence the dust cloud from the last vehicle to pass through.

This sign on SH3 is primarily advertising a bend but it also shows a small side road on the left. Side road signs can take on many different forms with either one, two or three side roads, depending on the layout of the junction ahead. It seems that if the side road is on the bend, it is drawn thin, otherwise, it is drawn thicker.

Many bends have useful plates displaying a suggested speed such as this.

Temporary signage is orange and can say some odd things. This is on the unsealed section of SH1. It's a washboard surface!

My favourite.

It's not all rural though and the motorways can be very busy. This is a winter weekend on the northernmost part of the Central Motorway Junction (CMJ) in Auckland.

This is the busiest section of road in the country – at lunchtime on a quiet autumn Sunday, so it's not so busy in this picture, but its AADT is 202,000 – that's 1.4 million vehicles per week.

State highway road markings often use Raised Pavement Markers with each line comprising one reflective stud and three round domes. They are hardwearing, easily visible in the wettest of weather and are an excellent tactile rumble device. It seems that they are being phased out, probably due to concerns about motorcycle safety.

If a hard shoulder is above a certain width, or any width if it is in Wellington, it is marked with diagonal bars spaced approximately 90m apart.

This is SH2 and SH1 joining at the bottom of the Ngauranga Gorge in Wellington. Note how the middle two lanes merge to form one.

City junction signage varies from very good to non-existent. This is an excellent advance sign for a busy multi-lane roundabout. It is crystal clear as it shows lane allocations, so I wonder why we can't have it in Britain.

Written destinations in the lane are rarely used. "M'way" seems to be the most common at intersections.

Some roundabouts employ UK style signs. Local roads have blue signs, while state highways and motorways have green signs.

However, this is also a sign for a roundabout, and given that not all exits had destinations marked in the previous picture, one wonders how many motorists get confused when they reach this. Even more confusing is that the sign has State Highway 24 shields, but there is no state highway near here.

We must be grateful for what we get as there are many occasions where even major city links can have no signing whatsoever on the approach to a roundabout or signals, and no signage on its exits except for road names. It is assumed that you know where all the roads go.

Rural signage onto State Highways is good with a nice, simple double ended sign pointing to the major destinations along that route.

Motorway signage follows the Californian model. Exits are given the name of the road that the offramp leads to, unless the offramp leads to another motorway.

The purpose of directional road signage is to provide information to people who are unfamiliar with an area. Naming exits as roads seems to cater only for locals, who don't need to read the signs, as they know where they are going.

Out-of-towners are looking for a location in a suburb or the city centre, but the only sign that gives this information is mounted on the left, sometimes only 200m before the offramp. This is of little help if you are passing a truck or you are in lane 3!

In this photo, lane 3 goes to the same destinations as shown on the sign in lane 4, as the SH16 exit is a few hundred metres after the Cook St exit, but lane 4 doesn't go to SH16 Port/Helensville without a lane change into lane 3. Which exit would you use for the city centre?

Fortunately, Wellington has kept the old signage which gives the primary suburb at each exit.

Oh look, there it is! This is the first sign to the city centre in 35km, it is 500m before the exit and is after other exits that could also lead there if you don't know the area. SH16 is correctly signed over its exit lane, and note how the signs have gone over the correct lanes. But where does lane 3 go?

Staying on the American model, the "Motorway Begins" sign is identical to the "Freeway Begins" signs used there. The international Motorway symbol is not used here. This is not a problem. What I do wonder is why they always seem to put the Motorway Begins sign after an onramp, which is way past the point of no return for non motorway traffic.

Nice clear signage on the Wellington Urban Motorway shortly before it goes through the three lane Terrace Tunnel, which has internally illuminated cats eyes to reinforce the road markings.

The only issue I would have with this layout is the lack of change of road marking for lane 1 as it is a lane drop.

Normally, there is a "Wrong Way" sign facing back up motorway offramps, but this one at the Motorway Services at Bombay, south of Auckland, has been pimped-up with the addition of a "Go Back"! One can only assume that there had been a problem here in the past with illegal entries onto the motorway.

Traffic signals give lots of variations and can have red, yellow and green arrows or most combinations thereof. To hold left turners (or right turners off a one way street, like here) when a pedestrian phase runs on the side road, the red arrow is kept on when the main signals go to green. When the ped phase has finished, the red arrow is simply extinguished. Simple and easily understood.

The sign above reads "Turning traffic give way to pedestrians".

This intersection in Wellington shows a number of things. The nearside signals have aspects (or "lanterns" here) for the left and middle lanes. The right hand signals have aspects for the middle and right hand lanes.

It also shows the common usage of continuity lines through the junction, including a guide line for the right turners opposite.

Nine aspect signal heads are possible too, as on this mast-arm.

This intersection in Auckland appears to be a bit of a jumble (only half the intersection is visible), but the continuity lines provide good guidance to the driver. Surprisingly, many motorists seem to obey them.

This is a mid-block crossing. Staggered crossings like this are uncommon in NZ. This image clearly shows the flush median that is common on many urban roads here. The median allows for vehicles turning into driveways to safely pull out of the traffic stream, as the white car is doing here.

A novel solution to the problem of head-on crashes is to install a wire rope barrier on the dangerous stretch. This single lane dualled section of road on the Kapiti Coast near Wellington has been retrofitted with the barrier and has gone from bad to excellent in safety terms.

High on the hillside above the Kapiti Coast Road is a council-maintained road called Paekakariki Hill. It has only short sections of barrier, but mainly, nothing at all. It is a long way down a 45° or more slope if you make a mistake. There are no shoulders or run-off areas either. The North Island Main Trunk Railway and SH1 run along the bottom.

A little further on, down the other side is Grays Road, which runs round the picturesque tidal Porirua Harbour. It isn't as dangerous as it looks, as the water is fairly shallow (I think), but I would be surprised to see a road like this in the UK without barriers.

Now, what's missing here? Mmm?

Yes, there's no barrier, although there is a short stretch on the right hand side protecting a road sign.

This is SH1 and the North Island Main Trunk Railway and there is no protection of the railway whatsoever from errant road vehicles. Two thousand ton trains regularly pass through here. Those are high voltage cables above the tracks as well. The same situation exists at a site in Auckland as well where there are 160,000 vehicles a day on the adjacent road.

Ramp metering is widely used on the Auckland Motorway network. The signals are preceded by a VMS at the start of the onramp to say whether the signal is on or not, then one halfway along which tells the motorist to prepare to stop.

Most on-ramps have two lanes at the stop line (or "limit line" here) and one vehicle is allowed to discharge per green per lane. The green is fixed at 1.3 seconds and the leaving amber is fixed at 0.7 seconds. The variability in the cycle time is taken up by the variable red period.

The signals meter the flow onto the motorway when the mainline flow is approaching saturation. This delays the onset of flow breakdown, allowing more reliable journey times. The signals here are adaptive and work extremely well at delaying the onset of severe congestion and at easing the end of it.