h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

New South Wales is the most populous state in Australia and has really, really busy highways - many of which have long stretches where overtaking is not permitted, broken by short overtaking lanes.
It is sheer folly to believe that you will get past every slow car when you get to this lane. To show that you are a firm believer in this philosophy it is very important to wear your hat whilst driving.

Your hat is a clear signal to all other drivers that you will not be speeding, that you care conscientiously about their health and will not allow them to overtake so that they can drive at the speed limit.
Your hat is a signal that you have risen above such abuse as honking horns, raised middle fingers and flashing lights.

Being a "hat" (an affectionate nick-name for those who take on this style of driving) you will of course know that the most important time to take car trips is on Sunday, and failing that, on any first day of a School Holiday.

Your style of hat is important. Your best hat from the 1940's is indispensible, of course, failing that a jaunty cap such as worn by golfers will give a similar signal. A baseball cap projects entirely the wrong impression - as if you believe that overtaking lanes are for *overtaking*!

To accessorise your hat your style of car can assist - old Austins, newer Hondas and course, who can forget the ultimate hat accessory - the Volvo (hallowed be its name). No one driving in NSW ever fails to respect a "hat" driving a Volvo.

The Hat also exists in some form in our capital of Canada - Ottawa. By wearing a hat and/or driving a minivan here you make a statement that only but the leftmost lane is for you.

Being a urban area of about a million enclosing the government, a growing high-tech industry and dispersed residents, we are serviced by one big 4 lane-highway (4 lanes East and West that is) - The Queensway - a daunting prospect for the Hat or the hurried or hatless.

Rush hour traffic pretty much all converges on this highway - People going from where they live to where they work. The average commuter has for some time for the few minutes it takes to cross the 15Km or so of city - merge into this highway.

Canada follows the convention of Continental Europe, US, etc. in driving on the right - Slower traffic on a multi-lane highway is to the right and passing lanes to the left. The aptly named Queensway is one of the few zones in the country where the convention follows that of our sovereign's home. Save that the entrance to the highway still merges from the right.

Once the average commuter as managed to merge into traffic - they will be confronted by a slow moving vehicle and to approach the speed limit will merge to the left. Once reaching escape velocity, the hatless commuter will suddenly be driving in the faster lane then forced to slow to somewhat less than the speed limit. Once summing up the nerve to pass on the right, this task will be made more difficult by faster traffic already passing on the right. Once our hatless commuter gets a view over a hill of the traffic pattern ahead he realises that the entire fast line is following a minivan moving at 85% of the speed limit, the middle two lanes are half empty moving sporadically fast and the rightmost lane is empty with a few speeders.

Passing on the right our hatless commuter will often reach the empty lane just in time for his intended exit.

In New Zealand we drive on the left and whilst driving in the countryside often come across hat wearing Americans driving on the wrong side of the road.

This not only scares the ordinary kiwi driver but the hat is often accompanied by a totally inappropriate floral shirt, covering a large beer belly, which scares the sheep grazing in the paddocks.

That would be a curious experiment - Transplant a Capital Region Canadian Minivan-piloting hat-wearing commuter to the roads of NZ. This may also provide evidence to point to ways in which we really are different from our neighbours in the USA. This expermient would test the following:

- Would the mirroring of the driver's side and direction of travel confuse the subject, producing a similar phenonema as the beer-bellied gaudily clad driver - driving against traffic?

- Would the subject be intuitively driven by the instinct to move left towards the boundary condition and keep the vehicle moving in the conventional direction as in New Zealand?

If you see a rather sluggish minivan in front of you driven by a hat-toting, perhaps beer-bellied but not-so-gaudily-clad pilot, this would confirm the second hypothesis. Let me know. We have to stake out our identity you know.

The guadily dressed, overweight USA citizens can be easily spotted.They hire NZs largest, most overpriced, camper vans because they have satellite TV access and he can catch up with American World news on CNN.

At the roadside ice-cream stall he is the loud one saying "Maryallen buy a new video camera. This one's out of film".

There we are then - Staking our identity - I doubt the CBC news is available on sattelite "down-under" or there-abouts.

No the world according to Canadian broadcasters is not available.

An interesting point of difference between Canada and New Zealand is the size of the "Road Kill".

I believe you have large cervids being nasty to large American cars. We have Japanese cars being nasty to possums, cats and low flying birds.

An interesting law was introduced here recently. If your car hits an animal you must stop and check on the animal's welfare. If it is injured you must take it to a vet. If dead you have to humanely dispose of it.

Hats could be used as coffins for small road kill thus making the roads safer for everyone.

I may be showing my ignorance of certain local regulations - but I wonder how such a law would work here. Certainly, as a friend of mine would attest, hitting a large deer with a motorbike will probably concern the authourities more with reviving and repairing the human debirs. But, even so I would find it hard to imagine the driver or recently ex-driver of their '78 recently converted to convertible Chevy (due to the action of a large moose removing the car and contents above the windscreen wiper level) removing the remains of such a large unfortunate beast.

Take those yellow warnig signs with deer or moose in Canada very seriously!

In NZ some cars have "Bull Bars" fitted to the front and rear of the car. They come in handy if stray stock are wandering on the road at night because some tourist has left a farmers gate open after helping themselves to the wild mushrooms (or other things).

In Australia they are called "Roo Bars". Big kangaroos can cause a lot of damage.

Maybe Canada should have "Deer Bars"?

Bulls by their stocky nature can be dealt with by this kind of thing. The problem with a moose (or meeses?) is that it has rather long legs and a massive torso. Appropriate "bull bars" would obstruct the drivers view - offending our conservative driving nature.

Duck and cover (just kidding!).

Just touching on a couple of earlier points tongue firmly in cheek.

Maybe vets could travel with the medics to "road kill" accidents?

We take the CBC coverage of the Winter Olympics. We are now all experts in the fine sport of curling.

A pity only about 20 kiwis play it and we have no rinks (or whatever they are called)

We do have our fair share of Nissan/Honda/Toyota/Subaru/Hyundai-flattened squirrels here too. Pulling over in rush hour traffic and running into the middle of the road with a shovel would get the ire of fellow drivers - if not just simply be dangerous.

Better leave the poor thing there, and hope that its last thoughts where happy thoughts - like finding a nut, or throwing acorns at sleeping vagrants.

Down(up) here in the 'great state of Texas' (no, I'm not a native, and no, I don't drawl) the most dangerouds thing you could hit on the highway at night would probably be an Armadillo. Not because of their size, but because of the fact that, when startled by headlights, they don't freeze. They JUMP. Rather high, as I am told. That's probably why I have yet to see a car around here without damage to its windshield...

Maybe modified Roo Bars could be the answer in Texas.

Kangaroos don't really jump, more an athletic hop, but they can reach quite spectaclar heights.

The saddest road kill experience I had living in Monterrey (just south o' Texas in Mexico) was the execution of a tarantula by an arachnophobiac. Monterrey being a large city, the armadillos, tarantulas, snakes, pumas, etc. all hide off in the mountains. Coming back from my commune with nature in the mountains one day in my trusty Sentra I narrowly missed a large black crawling beast. Brief identification being it was a large pregnant tarantula. Thinking about this further, I realised that this poor beast has a low chance of survival - So I shall save that tarantula - scoop it up - and find a nice construction site for it to hide (In a wild fit of nature conservatism).

Turning round I see a car stop near it's location, reverse and drive off again. The tarantula unable to jump or run particularly fast met it's fate under the wheel of a Dodge Shadow (a small American car often cruel to arachnids in Mexico).

"Arachnid Sweepers". Designed like the "Cow Catchers" on old steam trains could be the solution here I feel. They would be great at saving the lives of jay-walking hedgehogs as well.

The catcher is a brilliant idea - I am sure someone will get rich from this someday. I put a link to
some photos on my home page - so you can visualise the surroundings where many an arachnid
gets flattened (Garza Garcia).

Curling is another topic. Fortunately outdoor street curling hasn't caught on. In winter that would
add yet another dimension of peril to the driver. Those stones are pretty heavy.

Our 20 NZ curlers (?) would love to play on the road. Most cars in our mountain areas are off-road models and therefore quite high. The stones could pass underneath easily.

Have a chat with those 20 curlers, maybe you could start Kiwi off-road mountain curling. From what I know (think I know) about your climate you might have to hunt a bit for suitably frosty areas most of the year.

Maybe this variation of the sport could be exported to Canada, cricket never much caught on except with the odd expat Englishman, South Asian or Australasian who brought their bat over here. Off-road nature stuff is popular here as most of the country is wilderness.

By sticking to off-road rinks any (most?) danger from semi-conscious or aggressive drivers would be avoided. I suppose the sheep won't mind.

Curling is limited to winter when the highland lakes freeze over.

The only animals around these lakes are skiers and deer.

A few well placed stones on the skifields could be fun.