Driving in New Zealand - An American's Perspective 

The arrows on the road were introduced because tourists kept forgetting which side of the road they were supposed to be on and causing accidents! They're usually placed near tourist-heavy attractions, especially at the exits. BTW when you're pumping petrol there's a little clip/switch on the nozzle that you can flick to keep the fuel flowing without having to hold it - it's slightly different at the various petrol stations (eg Caltex vs BP) but they all have it. Also most fuel brands have an ap that you can download to pay in-car without going inside - trying to keep you brand loyal!

Fun fact, New Zealand's national roading system is predominantly based off the United States. Our very first highways were designed by an engineering firm based in San Francisco (Wilbur Smith Associates), along with the help of Caltrans/California Department Of Transportation. Soon after that N.Z had also adopted other U.S styled road elements such as road signs (most obvious being the yellow diamond shaped signs and green highway direction signs). Other road elements that were copied include a few U.S styled road markings, one of them being the solid double yellow center lines. Similar countries like Australia and the U.K use the European styled solid double white center lines instead. Another similarity between N.Z and the U.S are the highway designations, more specifically, California's State Highway route shield system. Our highway route shields are the same shape as California's (miner's spade) however flipped upside down, but could also mimick the U.S Interstate route shield as well. Just like with all state specific routes in the U.S, the national highway routes here in N.Z are also labeled "State Highway x" (SH1, SH2, SH3, etc). Similar countries like Australia and the U.K use their own alphanumeric system instead "Motorway x" (M1, M2, M3, etc). When driving in Auckland or Wellington you’ll also notice Californian styled concrete barriers and overpasses which Caltrans used during the 60's/70's. New Zealand's vehicle scene is very diverse, we have cars and trucks from all around the world. We have American, European, and even Asian styled semi trucks. As for cars, we have everything from small Japanese compact cars all the way up to large full-size V8 American pickup trucks. We have it all!

Friendly NZ traffic engineer here. The top highway limit in New Zealand is actually 110km/h, but only applies on 2 different highways, about a 100 km total length. Speedometers are required to read at or over the true speed. Whenever they're low they get corrected, they only get corrected if they're reading way over. One lane bridges are primarily really old bridges. When they get replaced they usually get replaced with two lane bridges on busy roads. We're saving a lot of money by just not replacing bridges. They cause some crashes, but typically only fender benders. Two lane bridges are often worse because people hit the abutments at 100km/h and die. New Zealand has expensive petrol because highways and 50% of local roads are paid for from petrol tax. In the US, roads are paid for mostly by general taxation (and honestly, debt). New Zealand is actually average for wealthy nations, the US is very cheap. The road rules recently changed to allow road controlling authorities to set realistic speed limits on rural roads (I.e. not 100kmh on windy roads). However, almost no e of the south island state highways have had this happen yet.

Glad you enjoyed your stay in our country. Juicy vans drive us nuts too. The painted arrows are there to remind tourists to keep left, since they painted them our tourist accident rate has dropped dramatically.

The reason its 30 is for resealing so the new seal can set properly and not get ripped up by speeding drivers

this is really comprehensive. thank you!

thank you this was so helpful!

Very helpful, thanks!

As a Kiwi driving on the right side for a couple of years, like you I found T intersections in the country and shopping mall car parks are where I struggled with which side of the road was the correct. Good video.

Excellent video. I am pleased that you enjoyed your time in our country. A few years ago I went to BC Canada via LA. I didn't drive in the USA, but got a rental car and went for a short road trip around BC. Like you, I didn't seem to take too long to adapt to driving on the other side of the car and road. The scariest things for me were roundabouts/traffic circles and as you mentioned, turning onto another road and remembering to stay on the correct side of the road. As for the roundabouts, even though it was obvious that you travel anticlockwise in Canada, to me it seemed so wrong. That took some getting used to, and, yes, I noticed that there were a lot more STOP signs than GIVE WAY signs there. Until then, I had never seen an intersection with STOP signs on every entry. Here in NZ we only have STOP signs on 2 opposing entries and the other direction has GIVE WAY. Another big difference I noticed was turning right on a red light. In Canada, and the USA I believe, you can turn right on red if the way is clear. I remember getting honked at while waiting to turn right at my first red light. LOL.

On the subject of Google maps: as you said, it's usually pretty good. What you do sometimes have to watch out for is being routed over an unsealed road when set to use shortest route. I had that happen once when driving from Hokitika to Arthur's pass, and while I didn't mind, it can be disconcerting if you're not expecting it.

Stop vs Yield/Give-Way. I have been living in a provincial town for nearly thirty years after living in Auckland for the other half of my life. I can count on just one hand the number of times I've seen cars stop at stop signs here when they have not been required to do do by oncoming traffic. Ironically, behaviour at Give Way signs is erratic and people regularly stop when there is no traffic.

Comprehensive even from perspective from one drives in Australia - same as NZ. Google maps can be downloaded for offline mode - hope this helps for fellow traveller. I'll be in NZ in March.

Your lane separation points are on point, rarely, I will not know whether the land next to me is an oncoming land or my way lane when divided by white lines.

It's common to see card machines on the pump now 2024

Missed (??) comments on the ever-present recommended speed signs on country road bends and curves. These consistently understate the actual ideal speed by about 10kph for saftey but are amazingly consistent and a great guide even for Kiwi drivers in areas that they don't know.

Kiora mate, hope you had an amazing time here in Aotearoa New Zealand. One correction, driving on the left is not the wrong side, in fact another 75 countries do, including India, the most populated and Japan. Hence why you'll see many Japanese imported cars.

Here in Australia the roads are much wider but the driving habits are the same. If you come to Australia remember that Ford and Holden UTEs always speed or will tailgate you until you let them pass. Most are V6 or V8s.

Bridges that are used by both road and rail traffic can be unsettling until a driver becomes used to them. But to be fair, my own experience of these dates back to the 1970s driving on lightly trafficked roads in the country's South Island- Te Wai Ponamu.

As a Kiwi driver (and having driven in the USA a lot and some in Europe), this is a pretty fair summary! Those campers (mostly driven by tourists), that don't allow traffic to pass, are a constant source of frustration to other drivers. Another frustration is those drivers (sometimes the same campers) that speed up when they get to passing lanes - making it difficult to safely pass. 25 years ago, tourism was minimal (and population less) which meant traffic was much less, so narrow roads / one lane bridges didn't really matter much. Unfortunately 30 - 40 years or so ago our road death toll was also pretty bad, peaking in 843 deaths in 1973 and now its down to about 320 deaths despite a huge increase in the number of vehicles on the road. I think the improvement has come from safety improvements to cars, higher volume traffic (forcing drivers to consider others and limiting how fast they can go!), better driver licensing requirements (much better driving standard required now than when I got my license - which was crazy simple to get), improvements to roads (like straightening roads and safety barriers) and also increased policing has likely had an impact. We used to have a lot less road markings, but now with a lot more overseas drivers, more road markings have been added for safety (there is still the occasional head on crash from a driver driving on the wrong side of the road).

I had the same experience in the opposite direction, going from NZ/Australia to the US and driving on the right for the first time. It felt very trippy at first. Kept drifting too far right for the first day or two. But eventually got used to it. Only made one real mistake - was in the middle of nowhere in Arizona where I pulled off the main highway. No cars around at all. Without even thinking, pulled out the off ramp and went straight to the left side of the road. Drove on that side for about a few hundred meters till I saw a car coming in the far distance and that's when I remembered lol. Quickly swerved to the right side of the road. Never made that mistake again. The things that stood out to me in the US was all the 4 way stop signs. Those are non existent in NZ and Australia. And just soooo many stop signs in general. Really started to annoy me. The other thing was the lax speeding enforcement and adherence. At one point I was going 15mph over, and still had cars flying past me. Australia is super strict for that.

Our fuel prices are sky high because we do not produce oil. It has to be imported. We also do not manufacture cars, we import from Europe, Japan, Korea etc

Headed to NZ Sunday! How long did it take you to feel comfortable driving (i.e. 2nd day, 3rd??). Appreciate the info as the whole driving thing is likely my biggest concern for my trip. I opted for $0 deductible on the rental insurance anticipating I'm going to suck at it!! One other thing you could add is you rental experience. A lot of folks don't understand that your credit card rental insurance doesn't cover countries like New Zealand, Italy, and Australia. Thanks for publishing this!

The one-lane bridges are just the result of lack of money spent on the roads. But in quiet rural areas the bridges are quite adequate with some good manners from the drivers using them. As tourist and traffic density increases every Kiwi driver would love to see all one-ways replaced by two-lane bridges. We live in hope.

Thanks for your comments - tis nice to hear how others see us - the indicator / wipers steering column stalks placement is vehicle make dependent - basically based on where the vehicle was designed / built etc - it is a common issue for us kiwi drivers to use the wrong lever and have wipers going instead of indicator - most vehicles speedo reads slightly higher than what the GPS systems state you are doing - I think this is world wide and not just NZ vehicles and I thought is was to stop the car manufacturer being sued by USA drivers who had been ticketed for exceeding the speed limit - ta

How did you go with the LSZ????

Most of what I wanted to point out has already been covered here. The point about indicators and wiper stalks being reversed is true but only in cars manufactured in Australia or Asia or Japan (where they also drive on the left). If you drive a European brand here in NZ they have the stalks reversed like you are used to in the US. On the speedo accuracy, some brands are more out than others. They are like that from factory though and it isn't just for rental cars. It is also true for those same cars (e.g. Outback) in the US from comments I've read on owner forums. Most petrol or Gas stations want you to go inside the store to pay because you are more likely to also grab something to eat or a coffee. That is where they make their margin as there is barely any profit for the store on fuel itself.

Speed limits are pretty basic here and it's not very big, we usually just know the speed limit of an area

All cars have a tolerance in the speedos and read high. Means drivers keep to the speed limits. It's world wide so I'm surprised to hear the comment. And arrows on the roads are solely for the guidance of tourists. Several major (multi fatality) accidents have been caused by tourists in NZ. Easy enough to deal with the indicator/wiper thing when you drive a mix of cars in NZ.

The microwave speed indicators are accurate - Car speedometers are not. Car speedometers read up to 10 kmh faster that the actual speed. It is a requirement of the EU standard. A speedometer must never show less than the actual speed, and must never show more than 110% of actual speed + 10 kmh.

Nearly half the price of fuel in NZ is tax, including GST. Most of the tax goes to building and maintaining roads in NZ. That means the user pays for the roading system.

Motorcycles are the best way to tour New Zealand. The traffic is not a problem (we are allowed to lane split) and the twisty roads become quite awesome.

All cars have speedometers that are slightly fast. This is a measure against potential litigation should the speedometers read wrong and result in people getting tickets.

my private car always reads 5k over what seed i am actually doing.

You know if you're a pedestrian or one of those workers, a car going 50 is actually very fast when you are stationary. In Australia, it's 40km/hr. New Zealand roads can be a little narrower- may be the road edges are? However, one shouldn't pass those workers more than 30km/hr. It doesn't take much to kill someone. That people that go faster, haven't experienced cars flashing by.

Our stop signs have very clear yelliw lines on the ground. We dont have ridiculous 4 way stop signs, and no right on a red.

"Traffic circles" are called "roundabouts"

It's only confusing to tourists, being driven in Germany is scary,so I get what you're alluding to.

Those arrows are for Americans!

Driving in New Zealand - a Local Perspective @AkatarawaRoadRambles :)

Need to not push nozzle in too far to auto fill car with gas.

Fun Fact From NZ : When it rains & the sun comes out the white lines disappear.

If the NZ government were smart, the gigantic white direction arrows would be a feature every 1,000 metres on the open road. The number of times I have encountered foreign drivers on the wrong side of the road is shocking. It's not helped by the low traffic volumes which means in some places you could spend 15 minutes on the wrong side of the road without realising it. Plus, Kiwis are notoriously awful drivers - who have no clue about highway etiquette - and many of them hug the centre line in a suicidal fashion on dual carriageways. Best not to drive if you are visiting, in my view. And if you are so horrible as to hire a mobile roadblock - I mean a "camper van", then you absolutely MUST pull over and allow people to pass as soon as 2 cars stack up behind you.

New Zealand as some of the worst drivers in the civilised world - and I say this as a New Zealander. It is totally common for NZ drivers to tail gate, not indicate, overtake and then slow down once in front, drive in the far right (fast) lane of a motorway and then at the very last minute cross three lanes of traffic to take an exit, drive at night without headlights... Generally nice people, but pretty shit drives

Funneh

Ah, New Zealand had that feature to keep pumps going, but the nanny company state has removed that feature.

If you are cycling don't expect cars to see you. Most do but many don'r even bother looking for cyclists. Take responsibility for your own life as others will not.

The roadside speed radars are not accurate

Good video, but as a cyclist, your attitude scares me particularly as you are frustrated by a 'slow' Jucy van and 30 km/hr construction works. The road is for all types of road users to get you from (a) to (b) safely. Going as fast as possible is not meant to be the object of the journey.

What is it with all these Americans doing comparison videos between NZ and the US?? Nobody, least of all New Zealanders care what you think. The only think we want to know from Americans is "When are you leaving our country?".

New Zealand drive on the left side this is the right side. USA drives on the right side this is the WRONG side