CityBeat - Te Waha Nui Online

by Dylan Quinnell

A few weeks ago I was in vegas, Roto-vegas that is, writing for the Daily Post newspaper.

My three AUT colleagues and I were so busy during our field trip that we never quite realised how lucky we were with the traffic in Rotorua.

The worst traffic jam we encountered was a four car queue at a traffic circle, which cleared almost instantly. All of this smack bang in the middle of 7-9am ‘rush hour’.

After the week of bliss it was time to return home to Auckland, the City of Sails, where sea views leap out at you as you go about your business. That is if you can see anything beyond the sea of cars around you.

The journey home seemed to be going well, we’d left early enough. Then, Bam! We hit the traffic. Half three on a Friday afternoon we stopped moving on the motorway near Ellerslie, and for the next km or so we crawled, barely.

“Welcome home” so sang the chorus of car horns mockingly.

The cause: an accident was being cleared up on the side of the road, and we all wanted to rubber neck and soak in any gory details. That, and the fact we wanted to get home before the guy in front of us.

Everywhere we went we hit more traffic.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, other cars would randomly pull into the traffic flow without looking or caring.

And to add insult to injury, drivers started darting in and out of their lanes, sprinting out from behind turning cars and often forcing us to swerve or slow down.

We Jafas have become so ‘busy’ and selfish when it comes to driving, so much to that I would have preferred to stay in smelly Rotorua, where life is good.

To make things worse, after an hour on the road and navigating through the traffic, I too was driving like only residents of our concrete jungle can.

I wanted to get home, I was tired. I had just driven up from Rotorua; I wanted things my way. The problem was, so did the rest of the masses.

Where has the love gone, Jafas? Can we not bring it back? Let a car in every now and then, just take our time, be patient?

What do you think of Auckland drivers? Tell us about your road rage experiences by submitting a comment below.