Driving In New Zealand

We have successfully, if not gracefully, driven about 530 miles from Auckland to Wellington on State Highway 1, along the north-south spine of the North Island. Driving in New Zealand was one of the things we were most nervous about before we came. There are no real public transportation options here (train, bus), and Uber only works in the cities. Everyone rents a car, and half the drivers hug the left lane marking, a telltale sign that they are foreign tourists driving on the unfamiliar side of the road.

Won and I are probably the only tourists on earth who read the NZ Transport Agency’s safety guide to driving from cover to cover, and supplemented this with a half dozen YouTube tutorial videos. Apart from occasionally activating the windshield wipers when we meant to use the turning signal, things have gone swimmingly. The brain adapts quickly.

All the highways are 2-lane roads, with traffic going in opposite directions at high speeds (100kmh, about 62mph). Tractors, farming equipment, semi-trucks, and construction vehicles share the roads. You pass to the right, heading into on-coming traffic, on steep winding roads. Right turns are harrowing, both for the guy turning, as well as the guy rounding the corner at 62mph. There are also cyclists on the narrow shoulders. Yesterday, we saw a helicopter ambulance land on the road, to assist the passengers of a smashed up Toyota Yaris that had been attempting a right-hand turn.

Here are my suggestions for anyone planning to rent a car in NZ: rent from a larger international chain that tends to have a newer fleet of cars. It may be a little more expensive, but it’s worth some peace of mind not to worry about maintenance issues, and to get a bit more power and responsiveness. I am glad we rented a Mazda 3, not the economy option. The parking spaces and lanes are more narrow, but it feels better not to be the smallest thing on the road.

Plan for at least an hour longer than what Google Maps says it’s going to take. We took for granted our multi-lane roads back home. Here, everything shares the highway, and there’s no easy way to pass the tractors and semis going 20mph.

The good thing is, I haven’t seen a single driver texting since I arrived. Back home in Maryland, I once counted 3 out of 10 drivers either texting or otherwise driving with a smartphone in hand while on I-270 going 70mph. And drivers are courteous: slower moving cars often pull aside to let people behind them pass.

The journey continues on the South Island. We will be glad to trade our Corolla for one of these soon:

March 11, 2018