Australians are very bad drivers: Why we need to change our behaviour behind the wheel in the name of safety and sanity | Opinion

Nobody’s perfect, I get that. I’m not saying I am the world’s greatest driver and never do anything wrong.

But…I continue to be astounded by the low standard of driving in the country.

Australians, broadly speaking, are not very good drivers. We are right lane hogs, never let people into our lanes, either speed or drive around too slowly and just generally don’t pay enough attention when we’re behind the wheel.

Read more

Speed isn't the issue: Our flawed connection to reducing speed as a universal solution to road safety | Opinion Australian road safety is only marginally improving 'Towards Zero': Why the government's goal of no fatalities is on a road to nowhere | Opinion

Now, before you start slamming me in the comments section and roasting me on social media, it’s OK because it’s not your fault. The way we educate drivers in this country is, frankly, woefully inadequate.

As a parent with children rapidly approaching their learner’s permits, I have begun to think about how I intend to teach them and it won’t just be logging the minimum amount of hours and doing just enough to pass the test.

We’ve been doing that for decades, teaching people to pass a test and not teaching them how to drive. How to be aware of cars around them. How to merge safely and politely. How to maintain a safe speed.

The freeway is perhaps the best example of what’s wrong with driving standards in this country. Before the pandemic put the brakes on travel, I would always look forward to a trip to Germany, where the driver education standard is much higher and they have a trait so rarely found amongst Australian drivers - lane discipline.

Surely the most useless road signs in Australia are the ones that read ‘Keep left unless overtaking’, because based on my experience on the road no-one ever reads them. In fact, after years of getting mad at people driving slowly in the right-hand lane, it seems the best way to handle the freeway is to stick in the left-hand lane, pop cruise control onto the speed limit and relax as you gracefully glide past everyone to your right.

In Germany this would never happen. Putting aside the debate about Australia’s (arguably outdated) speed limits, the German autobahns are a fantastic place to drive, not because you can go fast, but because everyone is happy to stay in the ‘slow lane’ and leave the ‘fast lane’ for overtaking.

In fact, if you did choose the Australian tactic of moving into the ‘fast lane’ and staying put, you’d soon find yourself getting blinded by the high beams flashing in your rear view mirror. It is simply unacceptable in Germany to sit in the ‘fast lane’ if there is a faster vehicle behind you.

And yet we Aussies seem to take personal offence every time someone closes in on us on the freeway and happily block them for as long as we can. It’s not just stupid, it’s rude too.

The same goes when changing lanes. Be honest, do you let people merge in front of you? Or are you one of the countless fellow Aussies I see on the roads that will happily block others to save a single car length?

There have been multiple occasions where I have tried to merge out of a lane that is literally running out of road, only to find my fellow motorists running an NFL-style defence to block my merge. Yes, we Australians would rather run someone into a wall or a parked car than cede space in our lane.

Of course, to be fair, sometimes it’s not through ill-will people won’t let you in, it’s just plain old ignorance. They’re too busy worrying about their phone, radio or navigation to pay attention to anyone around them.

Which brings me to the other culprit to blame for poor driving standards in this country - our draconian focus on speed limits. Speed, we are repeatedly told, is the biggest killer on our roads.

This has resulted in both marked and unmarked speed cameras littering the roads around the country. While I’m not condoning speeding, it is a dangerous act, this hyper-focus and zero-tolerance attitude has actually had a negative impact on the way we drive.

People now drive seemingly with one eye fixed on the speedo, not daring to go 1km/h over the posted limit for fear of a speed camera lurking hidden somewhere beside the road. But this means people aren’t paying attention to the road enough, which is arguably a greater problem.

Who do you want driving towards you - someone doing 5km/h above the limit but with their focus on you and the other cars around them? Or someone doing exactly the speed limit but with their attention split between the road and the dashboard?

It doesn’t have to be this way either, at least not based on what I’ve seen in other countries. I’ve found driving in the US quite a strange experience, because casual speeding is quite common, even though there is a strong chance a police car will pull you over if they catch you in the act.

While I’m not advocating for a second that we should encourage casual speeding, removing the heavy-handed approach and encouraging drivers to pay more attention to the road and other cars would also help reduce accidents and lift the overall standard of driving.

The good news is there is a quick fix for the problems that afflict our roads - treating each other with more respect. The road doesn’t belong to just one of us, it belongs to all of us. It’s our shared community space and we need to treat it that way.

Paying attention to the ‘Keep left’ signs on the freeway, looking two and three cars ahead, allowing people to merge into your lane and keeping your eyes on the road (not your dashboard, phone or navigation) are all ways we can make the road safer.