Road Oddities

I'll enumerate just a few: roundabout, taxi and bus lane on the shoulder of the highway, and what I call "the third lane." I think the concept of roundabout annoys all Americans traveling to Europe, but once you figure out that a roundabout is the circular equivalent of an American four-way stop, things make more sense. Traffic flows and you always give priority to the car on your right. Ideally. If you drive a tiny car like me, you get the right to pass half of the times. Second odd thing: I just recently discovered the taxi and bus lane that is basically the shoulder of the highway. If I didn't almost get hit by a taxi coming from my left, I would never have realized there was such a lane. And if this didn't happen at around 7:30AM during the week, again I wouldn't have noticed the lane. This lane runs on the shoulder and often overlaps with the entry and exit onto the highway, so it is on the opposite side of the road compared with where the HOV lane is on the American highways. What I don't like is that any other vehicle carrying maybe more people than the taxis are not allowed on the taxi/bus lane, and also many taxis drive on it even when they are without customers, which I find abusive. Finally, the last odd thing about the roads in Oz (at least for now) is the so called "third lane," which is a short lane that is created to accommodate left turns, but instead of ending in the intersection, continues for a short distance afterwards. I have no idea why this lane exists. And it is a dangerous lane that is used by aggressive drivers to bypass others by suddenly bursting ahead of them and often pushing them to a stop just so they can move right in front of them. It's a cheaters lane. Odd! Today's picture could not be about boring roads, so I used instead a beautiful hibiscus from the Northern Territory.