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During travel, people expect to experience different things. The more different, the better. Driving on the left is obviously one major difference between Australia and China.
Look Right!
On the major roads visitors first arrive in the city, there are sign on the road to remind people to look right first.
I saw many signs like this in Hong Kong also. The sign above is shot in the Metro Museum Station (Cnr Liverpool & Elizabeth)
Keep Left
It seems obvious but since it is too important to do that, there are countless Keep Left sign throughout Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and, I believe, in all other Australia cities.
Keep left sign on the Great Ocean Road, Victoria
No Entry
Some other places use the No Entry to notify people not to go to the wrong way.
Wrong Way! Go Back!
On the freeway, imagine what happens if someone go to the wrong way and drive the car onto the freeway with 100+ km/hour only to find out all other cars are running at the same speed toward them?
In Australia, I found more "Wrong Way" sign than in any other countries.
The Wrong Way sign in Brisbane, near the North Quay of Birsbane river
The Wrong Way sign on the M1 freeway near Melbourne
My Experience of Converting from Driving on Right to on Left
The shift was not hard - after several km out of the parking lot, I start to get used to it. However, the road width in Australia seems to be narrower than in China or the States, which is very scary for me.
The gas paddle and the brake paddle are of the same position. The problem is about the turning lights. In cars running on the right side, the shift to turn on left or right turn sign is on the left of the wheel. In the car of Australia, it is on the right side. The other side is the wind glass brush.
In the first half an hour or so, I kept turning on the wind glass brush in the Sunny coastal freeway.
P.S. When I am back to Shanghai, and drove for the first few km, everything is perfect OK, but I just turn on the wind glass brush when I turned right.
Other Traffic Signs in Australia
The speed limit sign is everywhere.
Speed limitation
The traffic signs in Australia are maybe the most interesting signs I saw in the world. They have details! Look at this pedestrian crossing sign. It is the only traffic sign that shows the shoes of the people on it!
Posted by Jian Shuo Wang at October 5, 2006 7:46 PM
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and this link: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20061005_drive_on_the_left_in_australia.htm
it seems silly to me that Australia wants to stick with driving on the left when most of the world drives on the right.
Posted by: Shrek7 on October 6, 2006 10:32 PMIt's not a matter of sticking or not. It's a matter of unwilling to change the habbit inherited from one generation to the next. Humans are lazy in nature, without brute force, they don't change habbit. Why change? as long as the majority of Australian feel fine and comfortable, they are not going to change anything for a few thousand tourists.
Posted by: jqian on October 6, 2006 10:41 PMShrek7, maybe this is the first or second time I commented on your comment. I do believe every country or every people has the right to choose the way they want to be. There are so many difference in the world. It is called diversity. Please don't assume everyone in the world should behave the way you do, so in the future, there will be no one coming to your door and use forces to make you behave in other way. I do respect the rules in Australia, and in UK. I don't suggest you to use the word silly too often, since it hurt people (for people in Australia in this case, and in many other cases, for people in China).
Posted by: Jian Shuo Wang (external link) on October 6, 2006 11:02 PMSo what is your definition of diversity and multiculturalism? In my definition (English is no my mother language though), multiculturalism is one kind of diversity.
Recently, when I read books about the nature, I found diversity dominate the nature world. However, in human society, we often forget about it and have the wrong believe that we can create a completely unified world - like the attempt in globalization, and industrialization. So I put all the different aspects of the difference between people to people, country to country into the umbrella of diversity.
This is my definition.
I know everyone has different definition of a word. What is yours? :-)
Posted by: Jian Shuo Wang (external link) on October 7, 2006 12:31 AMAlso, regarding changing the direction of driving. History makes big impact on the future. To change from left-side to right-side driving is not that easy, if people really want to do that. The work related to the re-construction of roads, signs, and more difficult, people's driving, and walking habit is out of my imagination. It must be very very hard.
If for cars, it is not easy, for the train system, it is even harder. China used to driv on the left, in the early years of automobile. Later, it changes to right. However, the train system is still running on the left, just because the railways and branches were constructed on the left.
The change is not neccessary if we consider the cost. It is the same to attempt to change the electronic power (the outlet, the 220/110/240... stuff), the language, or anything that people feel not home in another land.
Multiculturalism is an ideology advocating people of all races and cultures with equal status and without racism. I think it is an appropriate term to express the interface of human.
I apologize of my alleged wording and should never overwhelm your comment.
Posted by: stephen on October 7, 2006 1:55 AMActually, may be driving on the left makes more sense to a person who's right handed.:)
Posted by: James on October 7, 2006 9:18 AMJian Shuo
I respect the laws, including rules of the road, in all countries I visit but that in no way implies that I believe they are wise or prudent. If you enjoy driving on the left, that's fine.
Stephen, it is completely OK. No worries. I agree that multiculturalism is a better term, although "diversity" may not be the "wrong" word. Keep fine-tuning the terms, since English is not my native language anyway, and I didn't know the word called multiculturism, and other rarely used words.
James, in Sydney, there were no sign like the one on the Great Ocean Road, but the sign saying "Keep on Left" on divided road. It is the same in China - there will be an arrow pointing to the right way to drive.
James: We don't have "drive on left", but we do have "keep left" signs in NSW.
Stephen: It does seem a bit weird to me to describe driving on different sides of the road as multiculturalism. After all, not many people would call a party with Aussies and Yanks (throw in a few Poms^H^H^H^HBrits for good measure) as multicultural :)
Posted by: Herbert on October 8, 2006 10:01 AMBecause many differences exist,the world is more attractive.
If there isn't serious collision,respect and accept them.
Jianshuo, good post. As for Stephen, trust me, English is not his mother tongue either, at least thats my conclusion after reading all his old comments. I think he just likes to prove that his english is better than yours. I don't know why would Stephen say its not diversity but multiculturalism in there when you obviously said that "there are many differences in this world, which we called diversity". So, yes diversity is absolutely the correct word in the context of your sentence.
Posted by: Olaha on October 12, 2006 3:07 PMI can't believe anyone would suggest Australians changing from driving from the left to the right. We are quite happy driving on the left, and changing to make other people happy is simply stupid. If you have a problem driving on the left then either don't drive when you're here or don;t come at all. It simple.
Posted by: nebodyhome on June 12, 2007 12:59 PMFrom where i come, we drive on the left. and now I study in australia and I drive on the right side. its not a big deal, you just need to drive 2 or 3 times to get used to it and feel comfortable with it.
the only problem i have is that i cannot import my corvette to australia because its a left side driving car :(
I'm not saying that they should allow me to drive my car in here. I just feel like talking about it because I miss my car.
Posted by: Torque on July 22, 2008 12:37 PM