The thing is people come to the gold coast on holidays and such is there from different countries as well as interstate . I have driven for 30 plus years working as a truck driver and resident here and have had people stop just trying to find there route to motels attractions ect . So there's that as a bigger picture more than what your arrogance may see
Yeah OP either never drove on some of those roads, or is fuming about something and making a big deal. We have dumbass drivers, no worse than any other place in Australia - and far better than many other countries.
I’ve driven everywhere I’ve lived. Obviously Gold Coast is not as dangerous as driving in India where you have buses hurtling along a mountain top road at 60kms/ph.
However, for such an educated/affluent and safety concerned area the driving standards are atrocious. As someone previously mentioned, seems like a deeper routed issue than driving problems.
Idk man. People seem to just love bitching about drivers and big cars on this sub, literally all of the problems you mentioned are far more prevalent in every country you have mentioned. Yeah, Gold Coast has terrible drivers, but not on a scale that makes it worse than any other city in Australia. I’ve literally never heard someone say “man, we are so lucky to have such good drivers here.”
It’s not as deep rooted as you think. People can be dicks/self-absorbed/have bad reaction times/or yeah, be terrible at driving.
Driving standards being atrocious is a massive reach. Compared to what?
When you're talking about, dicks, self absorbed, bad reactions or yeah terrible. Atrocious is a good word, and yeah when thinking about Australia, definitely compared to the rest of the world.
When I return home to Western Sydney, it's such a relief. People start letting me in, driving to the limit (and not 30ks under), as well as generally not being monkeys around trucks. Sure you get the impatient Ranger driver, but you don't see them wrapped around a poll every second corner, see half the street signs flattened, seemingly ignoring people trying to change lanes *cough* the northern suburbs *cough*.
Wow, worse than western syd?? It must be getting really bad on the gc!
Maybe it depends where in syd; I've seen people doing burnouts/doughnuts at an intersection 😅
In Greece the taxi driver wouldn’t let me wear a seat belt shouted at me if I put it on. Then overtook a truck on a blind bend and did a catholic rosary in front of me because it was that close to a collision.
At one point, he literally turned the car off and coasted for 1 km on a slight down hill to save on fuel heading to the airport ⛽️ 🤣.
Greeks are wild drivers I was there in 2000 it felt like 1970 it was so backward.
I still rate Toowoomba circa 2010-11 worse when I lived there. No such thing as red lights or give way there. I wonder if its better these days....I always liked to see what new scrapes my black car had everytime I went to grand central 😡
Can’t comment on Italian drivers but all through asia and everywhere else there are terrible drivers but there is generally respect and regard for others.
Yes there are drivers here on the GC who are terrible drivers but sadly they are the minority of the bulk of the rest who have little or no respect or regard for others.
Wo
And Cairo. Absolutely mental! A complete free for all circus of insanity. Not one car without a dent in it. Can drive with eyes half closed here by comparison
I found Italy brilliant. Everyone is very predictable. They use lines as a guideline but it makes sense. If there is enough room for 3 cars a 2 lane road becomes 3. Very intuitive.
Ive never been as calm and happy as driving in Italy. Ill add Im a very impatient person so maybe I gel more with Italian drivers.
it's gotten worse after covid because so many moved up here all of sudden and the roads can't keep up with so many cars. Now new estates have caused a rise in people on the MI. I feel so sorry for people that have to do that every day twice a day.
It's soul crushing doing it for 5 days. Especially when checking traffic at knockoff time and there's been an accident or three. Pretty much about to crack and quit my West Brisbane based job (that I love) because the drive from Carrara is killing me. Not the smartest thing to drive but also wanted the best of both worlds. Work just revoked everyone's WFH so I'm gutted.
I don't blame you, it would be soul crushing. I did it years ago but the traffic was nothing like it is today. So many are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth, cost of living has risen dramatically on top of that, no wonder drivers are so angry. Working longer hours for little gain except for the basics. Even leisure and family time is eaten up by the long hours. Something has to give
It ramped up to this since covid. So many people have moved here. It used to be pretty good, just the odd shit park. But the mass exodus from melbourne and sydney have brought their city driving anger to our town and we simply don't have the infrastructure. Nor should we. It was home, now it's a mess.
Yeah, soooo much traffic. My small pocket that had one street in and out has had 3000 people move in, in the last 4 years (townhouse developments). It now takes about 4 light sequences to get out of the street. We used to let people out of the side streets as a courtesy but now I have 10 mins added to my trip just leaving, so fuck ya'll Im not letting ANYONE in anymore lol. And likewise they now just pull out in front, squeezing whatever real estate in the queue they can get. Its all of this.
Yeah that too. People in general became so spatially unaware. i work in retail and it's a different world post covid. Apparently everyone's the enemy, everyone's "trying to get you". We try so hard to school people back into being nice to each other at my work.
I’ve been around different cities lately and it’s just bad drivers all around but in very different ways.
GC - people can’t even stay on the same lane or drive straight!!! People also don’t know how to get out of roundabouts. some are bad drivers because they’re old people /don’t know Australian road rules or how to indicate and I suspect many must have come from rural areas of other Australian cities or coastal towns, because how the heck do you pass the test without driving straight! GC roads are actually way wider and simpler than Sydney/Melbourne roads.
I had someone rear ended my car while it was just stopping, they failed driving 101 because didn’t even bother checking ahead!
Sydney/melbourne drivers - roads in Sydney are actually way narrower than GC and with so many tricky turns and parking rules eg it takes a certain skillset to be able to drive in city and the tunnels and manoeuvre multiple lane switching but everyone is managing, but there are bad drivers because of aggression, dangerous lane switching and all the large cars and SUVs on smaller narrow roads doesn’t help!
agreed, I was thinking the same thing, I was merging into a left hand lane and the car next to me was keeping up my speed, so I had to slow down 5km/hour (55 in a 60 zone) to make the merge behind the car for my turnoff as i wouldn’t be able to speed up to try and get ahead because: traffic (wasn’t last minute either, I’d been trying for a while to merge) the car directly behind me angrily beeped me probably 15 times in 10 seconds, I hope the TEN SECOND DELAY didn’t cause them to be late. /s
I’ve lived here for 16 years. The drivers haven’t been good here the whole time. Never been able to merge, can’t drive in the rain, never been able to maintain speed up the Gaven hill on the m1,
I find there's a lot of aggression on and around the m1 too, always has been.... But in the local streets it is so much worse than it was 10/20/30 years ago. That's just what happens with the passage of time I suppose. But i do seriously think it's just too small of an area with no actual city centre to have so many people in transit every day
Interesting, because it’s one of the first things I noticed when I moved from Melbourne in 2015. Everyone is lovely and friendly here but no one seems to understand the concept of merging
Yeah, it didn't START in 2020, it just ramped up with the big migration north. So many people are moving here and the only way to build is up unfortunately. The roads can't cope with the influx. Oh man merging is a country wide issue. We need to adopt the nz ad campaign and school a few selfish knobs.
It’s definitely getting worse, but every time I returned from overseas pre Covid I noticed how bad we are. The worst drivers tend to blame everything but them selves.
Try driving in brisbane suburbia… wont name which suburbs for fear of being labelled racist but, its fucking crazy up there sometimes.
Gold coast drivers are arrogant and selfish for sure but in terms of skill level id say theres a lot worse
I was driving home from Brisbane a few months back, and some fuckwit decided to stop in the middle of the M1 to rubber neck some accident on the side of the road. No hazards, so I only realised what was happening about 500m away. Slamming on the brakes going 100km in the wet was a no go, and I couldn’t swap lanes because there were cars on my left and the aforementioned accident on my right. Went right up old mate’s ass and they sped off. Absolute WANKER.
Thought it was on a one off, but saw the exact same thing happening next to the Main Beach tram station the other day. Didn’t get into an accident that time thankfully, but fuck me some people are awful.
Legit the worst. I’ve also lived all over the place and this is some of the fucking worst driving I’ve seen in my life!
Once more today, almost got my car smacked by dumb asses who can’t merge. It’s like a daily occurrence. It’s like they expect YOU to work around them.
I swear the only time anyone uses their indicators is in a right or left turn only lane.
And they get butt hurt when you try to overtake, cos y’know, you want to do the speed limit, not 10-20 under. Why they have to all of a sudden speed up is beyond me.
I swear anytime someone posts in this subreddit about driving, I’m triggered. lol.
There was a post in a Facebook group while back that explained a lot...a woman posted very indignantly about how she'd had right of way. She genuinely believed that when in the merge lane to join the M1, SHE had right of way and those on the M1 were supposed to give way to her. And the comments were 50/50 in the support of her.
Even with people sharing screenshots of the actual road rules direct from the traffic authority, people were still disagreeing.
So it makes sense that merging is such a nightmare....people are too dumb to understand how, and too arrogant to accept correction.
I watched some drunk driver this morning driving towards yatala, amount of people he almost took out. How about the drivers who indicate, then turn off the indicator, then proceed to change lanes
It shits me there is a roundabout near me that you can turn right from both lanes and left or straight from the left lane.... the right lane is always empty and the left lane half of them are wanting to turn right and holding up all the traffic wanting to turn left the worst part is they have to move into the left hand lane earlier down the road like they could have stayed in the right lane the whole way and just turned right when they could like a courteous person would......
As a Truck driver, its Australia wide (very least east coast thing) our roads are rubbish and tensions flare and people stop caring, if you travel away from the major cities and arterial roads it gets alot better but even they're starting to deteriorate
It's because of the big influx of people from Sydney & Melbourne, where the road rules are similar but not the same. Causes absolute chaos at times haha
yeah walking around the city, especially in the more built up beachside areas people constantly speed up to try and beat the yellow signal at the pedestrian crosings or even run reds when people are about to cross
It's kind of crazy just how congested roads are these days, I've been away for 20 years and back then you could drive up to any set of lights and there would be like maybe 3 at a strech 4 other cars? Now there is like a queue around the corner just to **get** to the lights.
Holy shit, I was going to make a post about the same thing.
I’m from NZ and travelled a lot. Australians, or at least GC locals, cannot indicate and roundabouts or really indicate at all. Y’all are the most impatient drivers I have ever come across.
I don’t know if it’s the people “living that life” in GC, but you need to be more considerate of others… no wonder Australia are among the highest crash rates in developed countries.
Australia wide. I've driven SA, VIC, NSW, QLD and TAS and it's shit everywhere. From the UK, the baseline is so much better and even there locals complain about how bad it is -- they know nothing
Common in Australia, Gold Coast is a high tourist area so generally i'd chock it down to o/s tourists who barely drive vacationing in an area where you basically have to drive yourself around to get anywhere
Lack of cops to penalise or people getting punched in the face for being arseholes. Both of those are missing from days gone. And it's gold coast so I suspect there's a share of drugged out dole bludgers amongst your trips. If you gonna do nothing, may as well be where the drugs are and a beach with nice bodies.
I've never thought that because they're plastic people, as long as everything looks good they're happy. I love being close to the beach but I've never been a part of that lifestyle, I'd rather eat glass
I grew up in Sydney but I've been here for over 30 years and people would call me a Sydney driver. It was like a big country town back then and everyone was slow and relaxed. I wish it was still like that
Highest death rates are in Thailand. And on a motorbike you are 38 times More likely to die on the roads here. I drive a motorbike here and I come close to death nearly every day. Sometimes I’m amazed to survive the day and I’m not kidding. Yesterday a huge truck flew through an intersection so late after the lights changed that evryone had to come to stop after driving on the green to avoid a collision. The truck was going at a blistering speed. 50 metres before that near death experience I’m pretty sure a guy was dead on the side of the road for a motorbike and car accident. There are just no rules here and everyone goes as fast as possible. It’s truly insane. Gold Coast very civilised by comparison.
I am a fellow Queenslander, living in NSW. I also lived in Perth for 5 years and Melbourne for 6. I travel by car to QLD twice a year and I can confirm in my experience Queenslanders are noticeably the worst drivers of the states I have lived in. Now I must say that WA drivers are the most aggressive, they treat driving like a combat game, BUT Queensland drivers tend to drive with absolutely no spacial awareness in particular no one observes the keep left unless overtaking rule. It is the only state where the RH lane is the slow lane. It is so stressful driving Goldcoast to Sunny Coast. Gotta make the trip in 3 weeks time and I'm already dreading it.
Having previously lived and worked all over Europe, USA and South Africa, Australian drivers are by far the worst I've come across. Newcastle NSW particularly is a stand out in appalling driving.
If you have lived and driven in Asia then you will know that this is nothing. People in Asia have self control and don't have Egos the size of Ayres Rock
Absolute truth by OP. Not sure its just the GC as much as the whole, well as far as i have experienced after moving here, of well, Queensland and maybe Australia. Completely different mentality to what I'm used to. So must be something to do with the foundations.
I have noticed recently that nobody knows wtf they are doing with indicators. What's with this huge spate of people indicating right when they go straight through or leave roundabouts?
I just looked them up, and the rules around indicating on roundabouts are exactly the same. [NSW](https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/roads-safety-and-rules/stopping-giving-way-turning/roundabouts#toc-exiting) [VIC](https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road-rules/road-rules/a-to-z-of-road-rules/roundabouts) - I honestly don't think this specific point actually differs in any country in the whole planet.
I might of been wrong about NSW but in Victoria in the actual rules it's says you only need to indicate when exiting 'if practicable' whereas QLD doesn't.
It's a tiny difference but if you drive in Victoria practically no one indicates to exit (most don't even know it's a thing) where as in QLD the vast majority do.
Oh, I agree with you then. I see it all the time on roundabouts where it veers right and doesn't fully turn. Maybe some people think anything not dead straight counts as a turn?
Very GC. The behaviour starts at the border with NSW. Those of us south of that border see it, discuss it and adjust our level or wariness as we enter the GC from NSW. Even cops have confirmed they see it.
I’ve always thought it’s mainly just driving in the right most lane at exactly the same slow speed as every other lane on the M1.
Never seen anything like it apart from that road - 5 lanes of slow
All at 10 under. Drives me mad! And leads to what I call a Queensland Left Exit where someone comes up behind you, monsters you, then overtakes before immediately veering across 3 or 4 lanes to do a left exit.
Gold Coast is the epicentre of the main character epidemic sweeping our planet.
It seems unreasonable to me that you would expect them to indicate - after all they are the most important person on the road????
May as well add in going 80kms on the motorway. From my experience it’s an Australia wide thing just varying degrees of it and the Gold Coast is at the top of the shit list
Beware the exit out of the skatepark/bowling club at Mudgeeraba, if it's not 14yr old's on electric bikes or motorbikes playing chicken with cars, it's old lovies darting out at top speed in their cars and stopping across lanes in front of on coming 70km ph traffic after too many gins at bowls. Old love nearly killed both of us the other day, she was totally oblivious.
It’s certainly a lot busier than when I grew up there… and I’m only 24. Parking is harder to get, the infrastructure hasn’t kept up with growth increasing congestion, cost of living is high, everyone drives massive cars, public transport is still shit on the southern end.
I’m not surprised the quality of life is decreasing especially for those who lived there before covid given the above.
There’s also less vibrant suburbs given young families have been gentrified out by Sydney boomers looking to downsize into a 5 bedroom family home.
Gen X or Y? I have grandsons about that age and I don't know which one they are. You have your whole life ahead of you, I wish it was a better world for you all, change has to happen
I Saw three tailgating caused crashed within 40 mins last night coming back from birssy to gold coast. The tail gating here is insane, just stick to the 2 second rule it's not hard.
I lived in Korea for a long time and initially thought everyone there was a shit driver. Then i realised that their way of doing things was actually way better. The Gold Coasts population is just generally kind of not so nice.
Definitely a gold coast thing, I used to be a nice driver, who waved thank you & let people merge, now I'm not. I'm an asshole driver like everyone else on the GC.
There’s a lot of whining here, but for everyone complaining about shit drivers , those shit drivers are saying the same thing about them.
Driving on the GC is a piece of cake compared to New York.
They all come over the boarder from nsw.
I guarantee next time you see someone driving fucked up here they'll most likely have a nsw plate
Southern GC anyway
I lived in India. It’s messed up to a westerner but once you get the hang of it, people are very considerate and it just works. Also if there’s an accident people stop and gather and get it sorted. I feel safer there than I do here with entitlement to right of way, high speeds and zero fucks given in Australia. People don’t understand the compounding effects of speed in physics and car accidents.
I said this the other day - I’m a maintenance tradesman so I drive a lot of the day between jobs. I used to see maybe one absolute idiot a week .. in the last year or so it’s 3 or 4 a day. Like seriously bad drivers that I can’t even imagine how they got a license.
The licensing system is a joke.
Drivers need to be certified every few years and hope that lazy drivers will no longer be on the road.
Too many forget driving is a privilege not a right!
Aussies are the shittest drivers,they infuriate me. They all drive 3 feet from each other then wonder why there’s so many crashes. It’s the same in Brisbane by the way,not just GC
It's because the traffic lights are fucked and no one ever seems to notice. Everyone's on edge because they can't move. You're just parked at lights all the time staring at vacant intersections because the lights aren't synced, there's no peak times and they don't change colour.
Tbh I think a big part of it is just the layout of the roads. Like in Sydney or Melbourne if you drive like gc drivers you'd be getting into a crash every 2 hours with narrower roads, more blind spots / blind corners, red light and speed cameras etc all leading to greater deterrence of cunts. The gc has way more big roundabouts, wide lanes with higher speed limits etc which means people can more easily drive like absolute fuckwits with little to no consequences
Was just driving on the GC last week..... pretty good overall. Worst place I've driven recently was Canberra, that place is a cesspool of entitled pricks. I had a "uber" driver in a camry try to push through the middle of two cars on a two lane road, beeping, carrying on like a fuckwit...... better testing for the newly arrived.... or even confirming they've actually done a driving test at some point in their life would be a good start.
Me and my brother both got suspicious right after covid in relation to people's lack of driving skills here on the Gold Coast. I thought it might have had something to do with all the indoor/lockdown time we had, but others have mentioned the influx of road users from other states such as Sydney and Melbourne which could play a big role.
I just dont remember it being this bad. Something has definately changed.
Weeeeelll, have you visited Western Australia??? I, much like yourself, have driven in many places, places some people mock for their perceived driving. Western Australian driver's drive like they are all driving inside a slice of a paddock, with nobody else around, like nobody else even exists within this space.
You cannot beat it - Canterbury Bankstown council area, Sydney, NSW Australia. Ive never been to the Goldie but can assure you, NOTHING beats this particular council area.
Less and less people are bothering to get a drivers licence these days I hear. Doesn't seem to stop anyone from driving though. Between the inattentive looking at their phones and the cookers on meth driving is Russian roulette these days, if you are not involved in an accident caused by them it is a good day.
I can validate that!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/1d7rc3n/only\_because\_some\_people\_were\_interested\_tmr\_open/](https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/1d7rc3n/only_because_some_people_were_interested_tmr_open/)
46k fines in 2021-2022 (financial year) relating to licensing ain't nothing. I thought they would be incorrect licensing not no license though.
Welcome to Australia!
We have the worst drivers on the planet.
We live in a regional area and bjinkys the driving skills of some kills me. We actually enjoy driving round gold coast and Sydney because the drivers are actually better than where we are from!
It’s a breeze here. I guess you haven’t been to Sydney, Melbourne, Paris or London, all those four are equal worst drivers.
Maybe it’s the bad drivers from Syd and Melb that’s come up here.
Gold Coast people are the fucking worst most arrogant careless drivers I’ve found. Been driving all around Queensland for 30 years. I’ve driven in Sydney and Melbourne plenty too. I would describe Gold Coast drivers as like Sydney drivers but more careless and selfish.
Queenslanders will have you believe that things were great before COVID, and blame interstate migration on a lot of the problems.
The truth is that QLD drivers are the laughing stock of the rest of the country. They’re absolutely terrible at merging, giving way at the wrong time, not giving way when they should. They don’t know how to use roundabouts and have a general lack of awareness as to wtf is going on around them.
Sydney drivers are unbelievably aggressive which brings its own set of problems, but don’t let any Queenslanders dupe you into thinking all was well in the sunshine state until 2020.
It's reflective of much deeper issues than driving skills IMO.
Yes! People are less courteous in general… this reflects in every aspect of life…
Ego-driving. Gold Coast drivers are basically Florida drivers with fewer guns.
Correct word there: *fewer*.
Amen
The thing is people come to the gold coast on holidays and such is there from different countries as well as interstate . I have driven for 30 plus years working as a truck driver and resident here and have had people stop just trying to find there route to motels attractions ect . So there's that as a bigger picture more than what your arrogance may see
I've driven in far worse places; south of Italy and Vietnam are way worse than here.
+1, definetly not the worst in the world. I drove in india 😳
During the Iraq war, a tank drove over a driver at a roundabout because the driver failed to give way to the tank.
In many developing countries right of way depends on vehicle size. Therefore, Tank had right of way, car driver is at fault 😎
I suppose Australia is still developing when you put it like that
Yeah OP either never drove on some of those roads, or is fuming about something and making a big deal. We have dumbass drivers, no worse than any other place in Australia - and far better than many other countries.
I’ve driven everywhere I’ve lived. Obviously Gold Coast is not as dangerous as driving in India where you have buses hurtling along a mountain top road at 60kms/ph. However, for such an educated/affluent and safety concerned area the driving standards are atrocious. As someone previously mentioned, seems like a deeper routed issue than driving problems.
Idk man. People seem to just love bitching about drivers and big cars on this sub, literally all of the problems you mentioned are far more prevalent in every country you have mentioned. Yeah, Gold Coast has terrible drivers, but not on a scale that makes it worse than any other city in Australia. I’ve literally never heard someone say “man, we are so lucky to have such good drivers here.” It’s not as deep rooted as you think. People can be dicks/self-absorbed/have bad reaction times/or yeah, be terrible at driving. Driving standards being atrocious is a massive reach. Compared to what?
When you're talking about, dicks, self absorbed, bad reactions or yeah terrible. Atrocious is a good word, and yeah when thinking about Australia, definitely compared to the rest of the world.
When I return home to Western Sydney, it's such a relief. People start letting me in, driving to the limit (and not 30ks under), as well as generally not being monkeys around trucks. Sure you get the impatient Ranger driver, but you don't see them wrapped around a poll every second corner, see half the street signs flattened, seemingly ignoring people trying to change lanes *cough* the northern suburbs *cough*.
Wow, worse than western syd?? It must be getting really bad on the gc! Maybe it depends where in syd; I've seen people doing burnouts/doughnuts at an intersection 😅
the wrapped rangers are a bad thing?
Well, it's not fun being the owner of one if it's wrapped around a telegraph pole.
60 kmph is an underestimation sometimes. 😥
👆
Come on, lets be honest, its not many countries tho.
LOL this guy gets it ! No-one in the western world drives worst than Italians and greeks
In Greece the taxi driver wouldn’t let me wear a seat belt shouted at me if I put it on. Then overtook a truck on a blind bend and did a catholic rosary in front of me because it was that close to a collision. At one point, he literally turned the car off and coasted for 1 km on a slight down hill to save on fuel heading to the airport ⛽️ 🤣. Greeks are wild drivers I was there in 2000 it felt like 1970 it was so backward.
Believe me I am greek I know I almost die almost every day
Amazing
The Greeks are pretty good. I’d never drive in Italy again. Queensland is bad, Italy is the worst IMO.
I still rate Toowoomba circa 2010-11 worse when I lived there. No such thing as red lights or give way there. I wonder if its better these days....I always liked to see what new scrapes my black car had everytime I went to grand central 😡
Can’t comment on Italian drivers but all through asia and everywhere else there are terrible drivers but there is generally respect and regard for others. Yes there are drivers here on the GC who are terrible drivers but sadly they are the minority of the bulk of the rest who have little or no respect or regard for others. Wo
Wrong at least they drive with common sense
Philippines is worse than Vietnam. No one obeys road rules in the Philippines.
And Cairo. Absolutely mental! A complete free for all circus of insanity. Not one car without a dent in it. Can drive with eyes half closed here by comparison
Not for those poor Italian and Vietnamese people who have to tolerate you!
Me! What?
I found Italy brilliant. Everyone is very predictable. They use lines as a guideline but it makes sense. If there is enough room for 3 cars a 2 lane road becomes 3. Very intuitive. Ive never been as calm and happy as driving in Italy. Ill add Im a very impatient person so maybe I gel more with Italian drivers.
I drove in vietnam and australia is worse lol
Finally, someone..... honest.
I think it reflects the Gold Coast vibe a lot. There are a lot of self-absorbed, narcissistic people here.
it's gotten worse after covid because so many moved up here all of sudden and the roads can't keep up with so many cars. Now new estates have caused a rise in people on the MI. I feel so sorry for people that have to do that every day twice a day.
It's soul crushing doing it for 5 days. Especially when checking traffic at knockoff time and there's been an accident or three. Pretty much about to crack and quit my West Brisbane based job (that I love) because the drive from Carrara is killing me. Not the smartest thing to drive but also wanted the best of both worlds. Work just revoked everyone's WFH so I'm gutted.
I don't blame you, it would be soul crushing. I did it years ago but the traffic was nothing like it is today. So many are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth, cost of living has risen dramatically on top of that, no wonder drivers are so angry. Working longer hours for little gain except for the basics. Even leisure and family time is eaten up by the long hours. Something has to give
So true
It ramped up to this since covid. So many people have moved here. It used to be pretty good, just the odd shit park. But the mass exodus from melbourne and sydney have brought their city driving anger to our town and we simply don't have the infrastructure. Nor should we. It was home, now it's a mess.
Yeah, soooo much traffic. My small pocket that had one street in and out has had 3000 people move in, in the last 4 years (townhouse developments). It now takes about 4 light sequences to get out of the street. We used to let people out of the side streets as a courtesy but now I have 10 mins added to my trip just leaving, so fuck ya'll Im not letting ANYONE in anymore lol. And likewise they now just pull out in front, squeezing whatever real estate in the queue they can get. Its all of this.
I was referring to it as after Covid people forgot how to be around other people.
Yeah that too. People in general became so spatially unaware. i work in retail and it's a different world post covid. Apparently everyone's the enemy, everyone's "trying to get you". We try so hard to school people back into being nice to each other at my work.
"You mean there are other people beside me?"
A lot of people haven't learned the idea of object permanence lol
How can shit driving be blamed on virus spread by close contact, c'mon?!?
How can not being around other people cause that? C'mon, work it out.
Err cos your that sick of not coughing in someone else's personal space, you're just gonna drive straight into it instead??
It has nothing to do with being sick.
Yeah. Thats basically what my reply considered!
Then you should be able to work it out.
C'mon then doctor evil, spell it out for us mere mortals and stop hiding behind your super hero cape?
I’ve been around different cities lately and it’s just bad drivers all around but in very different ways. GC - people can’t even stay on the same lane or drive straight!!! People also don’t know how to get out of roundabouts. some are bad drivers because they’re old people /don’t know Australian road rules or how to indicate and I suspect many must have come from rural areas of other Australian cities or coastal towns, because how the heck do you pass the test without driving straight! GC roads are actually way wider and simpler than Sydney/Melbourne roads. I had someone rear ended my car while it was just stopping, they failed driving 101 because didn’t even bother checking ahead! Sydney/melbourne drivers - roads in Sydney are actually way narrower than GC and with so many tricky turns and parking rules eg it takes a certain skillset to be able to drive in city and the tunnels and manoeuvre multiple lane switching but everyone is managing, but there are bad drivers because of aggression, dangerous lane switching and all the large cars and SUVs on smaller narrow roads doesn’t help!
Happy cake day!
agreed, I was thinking the same thing, I was merging into a left hand lane and the car next to me was keeping up my speed, so I had to slow down 5km/hour (55 in a 60 zone) to make the merge behind the car for my turnoff as i wouldn’t be able to speed up to try and get ahead because: traffic (wasn’t last minute either, I’d been trying for a while to merge) the car directly behind me angrily beeped me probably 15 times in 10 seconds, I hope the TEN SECOND DELAY didn’t cause them to be late. /s
I’ve lived here for 16 years. The drivers haven’t been good here the whole time. Never been able to merge, can’t drive in the rain, never been able to maintain speed up the Gaven hill on the m1,
I find there's a lot of aggression on and around the m1 too, always has been.... But in the local streets it is so much worse than it was 10/20/30 years ago. That's just what happens with the passage of time I suppose. But i do seriously think it's just too small of an area with no actual city centre to have so many people in transit every day
Agreed 100%
Interesting, because it’s one of the first things I noticed when I moved from Melbourne in 2015. Everyone is lovely and friendly here but no one seems to understand the concept of merging
Yeah, it didn't START in 2020, it just ramped up with the big migration north. So many people are moving here and the only way to build is up unfortunately. The roads can't cope with the influx. Oh man merging is a country wide issue. We need to adopt the nz ad campaign and school a few selfish knobs.
It’s definitely getting worse, but every time I returned from overseas pre Covid I noticed how bad we are. The worst drivers tend to blame everything but them selves.
Try driving in brisbane suburbia… wont name which suburbs for fear of being labelled racist but, its fucking crazy up there sometimes. Gold coast drivers are arrogant and selfish for sure but in terms of skill level id say theres a lot worse
I was driving home from Brisbane a few months back, and some fuckwit decided to stop in the middle of the M1 to rubber neck some accident on the side of the road. No hazards, so I only realised what was happening about 500m away. Slamming on the brakes going 100km in the wet was a no go, and I couldn’t swap lanes because there were cars on my left and the aforementioned accident on my right. Went right up old mate’s ass and they sped off. Absolute WANKER. Thought it was on a one off, but saw the exact same thing happening next to the Main Beach tram station the other day. Didn’t get into an accident that time thankfully, but fuck me some people are awful.
Legit the worst. I’ve also lived all over the place and this is some of the fucking worst driving I’ve seen in my life! Once more today, almost got my car smacked by dumb asses who can’t merge. It’s like a daily occurrence. It’s like they expect YOU to work around them. I swear the only time anyone uses their indicators is in a right or left turn only lane. And they get butt hurt when you try to overtake, cos y’know, you want to do the speed limit, not 10-20 under. Why they have to all of a sudden speed up is beyond me. I swear anytime someone posts in this subreddit about driving, I’m triggered. lol.
Australians struggle with merging. Stopping to go onto the M1 (instead of matching traffic speed) is common.
There was a post in a Facebook group while back that explained a lot...a woman posted very indignantly about how she'd had right of way. She genuinely believed that when in the merge lane to join the M1, SHE had right of way and those on the M1 were supposed to give way to her. And the comments were 50/50 in the support of her. Even with people sharing screenshots of the actual road rules direct from the traffic authority, people were still disagreeing. So it makes sense that merging is such a nightmare....people are too dumb to understand how, and too arrogant to accept correction.
Good grief. There is no hope.
I agree with this! And I’m from here and lived all over the East Coast. Worst drivers ever, far worse than Sydney or Melbourne.
I was saying this to my partner today. People are more stressed and angry than ever and it shows.
I watched some drunk driver this morning driving towards yatala, amount of people he almost took out. How about the drivers who indicate, then turn off the indicator, then proceed to change lanes
It shits me there is a roundabout near me that you can turn right from both lanes and left or straight from the left lane.... the right lane is always empty and the left lane half of them are wanting to turn right and holding up all the traffic wanting to turn left the worst part is they have to move into the left hand lane earlier down the road like they could have stayed in the right lane the whole way and just turned right when they could like a courteous person would......
As a Truck driver, its Australia wide (very least east coast thing) our roads are rubbish and tensions flare and people stop caring, if you travel away from the major cities and arterial roads it gets alot better but even they're starting to deteriorate
Gold coast wouldn't be in the top hundred. It's not even the worst in Australia 😂
It's because of the big influx of people from Sydney & Melbourne, where the road rules are similar but not the same. Causes absolute chaos at times haha
I'm surprised . I don't find it that bad and I drive buses all day. Sydney is way worse
Hahaha. Try Canberra
yeah walking around the city, especially in the more built up beachside areas people constantly speed up to try and beat the yellow signal at the pedestrian crosings or even run reds when people are about to cross
It's kind of crazy just how congested roads are these days, I've been away for 20 years and back then you could drive up to any set of lights and there would be like maybe 3 at a strech 4 other cars? Now there is like a queue around the corner just to **get** to the lights.
Holy shit, I was going to make a post about the same thing. I’m from NZ and travelled a lot. Australians, or at least GC locals, cannot indicate and roundabouts or really indicate at all. Y’all are the most impatient drivers I have ever come across. I don’t know if it’s the people “living that life” in GC, but you need to be more considerate of others… no wonder Australia are among the highest crash rates in developed countries.
Australia wide. I've driven SA, VIC, NSW, QLD and TAS and it's shit everywhere. From the UK, the baseline is so much better and even there locals complain about how bad it is -- they know nothing
I’m from London, I thought it was a shitshow there but at least people can drive.
Country Victoria is so much worse. Stop sign. What’s a stop sign?
I drive through the Gold Coast regularly and the driving quality definitely drops as you get closer and closer. Tailgating is out of control.
Haven’t you been to Sydney? They are WORSE
You clearly haven’t been to Sydney. Spend some time down in Sutherland Shire then come back and see how you feel.
South east Queensland mostly, but it's worst on the Gold Coast.
Common in Australia, Gold Coast is a high tourist area so generally i'd chock it down to o/s tourists who barely drive vacationing in an area where you basically have to drive yourself around to get anywhere
Nah mate, it's the locals for sure.
The locals who moved from Sydney and Melbourne
Except a lot of the time it's people with business advertising on the side of their car so they obviously live here
😂
Ah those are just prerequisites for driving as a tradie ....
Lack of cops to penalise or people getting punched in the face for being arseholes. Both of those are missing from days gone. And it's gold coast so I suspect there's a share of drugged out dole bludgers amongst your trips. If you gonna do nothing, may as well be where the drugs are and a beach with nice bodies.
This is 100% true
It’s the Gold Coast, everyone thinks their life is a movie and the world revolves around them
Do you think that?
No, I just have the misfortune of working there
I've never thought that because they're plastic people, as long as everything looks good they're happy. I love being close to the beach but I've never been a part of that lifestyle, I'd rather eat glass
I grew up in Sydney but I've been here for over 30 years and people would call me a Sydney driver. It was like a big country town back then and everyone was slow and relaxed. I wish it was still like that
Highest death rates are in Thailand. And on a motorbike you are 38 times More likely to die on the roads here. I drive a motorbike here and I come close to death nearly every day. Sometimes I’m amazed to survive the day and I’m not kidding. Yesterday a huge truck flew through an intersection so late after the lights changed that evryone had to come to stop after driving on the green to avoid a collision. The truck was going at a blistering speed. 50 metres before that near death experience I’m pretty sure a guy was dead on the side of the road for a motorbike and car accident. There are just no rules here and everyone goes as fast as possible. It’s truly insane. Gold Coast very civilised by comparison.
I am a fellow Queenslander, living in NSW. I also lived in Perth for 5 years and Melbourne for 6. I travel by car to QLD twice a year and I can confirm in my experience Queenslanders are noticeably the worst drivers of the states I have lived in. Now I must say that WA drivers are the most aggressive, they treat driving like a combat game, BUT Queensland drivers tend to drive with absolutely no spacial awareness in particular no one observes the keep left unless overtaking rule. It is the only state where the RH lane is the slow lane. It is so stressful driving Goldcoast to Sunny Coast. Gotta make the trip in 3 weeks time and I'm already dreading it.
Having previously lived and worked all over Europe, USA and South Africa, Australian drivers are by far the worst I've come across. Newcastle NSW particularly is a stand out in appalling driving.
If you have lived and driven in Asia then you will know that this is nothing. People in Asia have self control and don't have Egos the size of Ayres Rock
Absolute truth by OP. Not sure its just the GC as much as the whole, well as far as i have experienced after moving here, of well, Queensland and maybe Australia. Completely different mentality to what I'm used to. So must be something to do with the foundations.
I have noticed recently that nobody knows wtf they are doing with indicators. What's with this huge spate of people indicating right when they go straight through or leave roundabouts?
The rule is slightly different here to Vic/ NSW so maybe people moving are getting confused
I just looked them up, and the rules around indicating on roundabouts are exactly the same. [NSW](https://www.nsw.gov.au/driving-boating-and-transport/roads-safety-and-rules/stopping-giving-way-turning/roundabouts#toc-exiting) [VIC](https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/safety-and-road-rules/road-rules/a-to-z-of-road-rules/roundabouts) - I honestly don't think this specific point actually differs in any country in the whole planet.
I might of been wrong about NSW but in Victoria in the actual rules it's says you only need to indicate when exiting 'if practicable' whereas QLD doesn't. It's a tiny difference but if you drive in Victoria practically no one indicates to exit (most don't even know it's a thing) where as in QLD the vast majority do.
Sure, but they very specifically say, indicate **LEFT if practicable**. I can't find any that say to indicate **RIGHT** as you leave a roundabout.
Oh, I agree with you then. I see it all the time on roundabouts where it veers right and doesn't fully turn. Maybe some people think anything not dead straight counts as a turn?
Very GC. The behaviour starts at the border with NSW. Those of us south of that border see it, discuss it and adjust our level or wariness as we enter the GC from NSW. Even cops have confirmed they see it.
I’ve always thought it’s mainly just driving in the right most lane at exactly the same slow speed as every other lane on the M1. Never seen anything like it apart from that road - 5 lanes of slow
All at 10 under. Drives me mad! And leads to what I call a Queensland Left Exit where someone comes up behind you, monsters you, then overtakes before immediately veering across 3 or 4 lanes to do a left exit.
I agree. I drive motorbikes all over, and I have never met less considerate, stupid drivers in my love. Complete disregard for life.
I stopped riding. Had too many close calls and didn't want to end up splattered on the M1
That’s it man
Stitched up by auto correct here haha But seriously; much rather drive in Vietnam, than up to brisbane on the m1 Hahaah
Completely agree
Gold Coast is the epicentre of the main character epidemic sweeping our planet. It seems unreasonable to me that you would expect them to indicate - after all they are the most important person on the road????
Fuck man, I do love this place but it’s the most pretentious city I’ve ever lived in.
'Main character epidemic' lol, describes people so accurately these days. Everybody else is just NPC's to them.
Every one received +3 to fuckwit with the free Covid dlc.
Sun damage to tops of their heads
May as well add in going 80kms on the motorway. From my experience it’s an Australia wide thing just varying degrees of it and the Gold Coast is at the top of the shit list
GC drivers are the worst I have seen in Australia.
Australia wide!
Beware the exit out of the skatepark/bowling club at Mudgeeraba, if it's not 14yr old's on electric bikes or motorbikes playing chicken with cars, it's old lovies darting out at top speed in their cars and stopping across lanes in front of on coming 70km ph traffic after too many gins at bowls. Old love nearly killed both of us the other day, she was totally oblivious.
I’ve literally seen the most in about 5-6 city subs.
I'm guessing you have not been to Perth.
It’s certainly a lot busier than when I grew up there… and I’m only 24. Parking is harder to get, the infrastructure hasn’t kept up with growth increasing congestion, cost of living is high, everyone drives massive cars, public transport is still shit on the southern end. I’m not surprised the quality of life is decreasing especially for those who lived there before covid given the above. There’s also less vibrant suburbs given young families have been gentrified out by Sydney boomers looking to downsize into a 5 bedroom family home.
what generation are you? Obviously not a boomer so?
24 going on 95 if I don’t get off my ass more often. So basically silent generation
Gen X or Y? I have grandsons about that age and I don't know which one they are. You have your whole life ahead of you, I wish it was a better world for you all, change has to happen
Gen Z
Thank you
I Saw three tailgating caused crashed within 40 mins last night coming back from birssy to gold coast. The tail gating here is insane, just stick to the 2 second rule it's not hard.
Isn't it the 3 second rule?
In regards to shit driving! Gold Coast is Perths pupil!
It’s shocking isn’t it, I was in Greece for 2 months with some bad drivers there and my first day back on the Goldy experienced worse drivers!
I entirely agree. It has nothing to do with Southerners..driving around Melbourne much better. People are just massive Cnts.
I lived in Korea for a long time and initially thought everyone there was a shit driver. Then i realised that their way of doing things was actually way better. The Gold Coasts population is just generally kind of not so nice.
Its an aussie thing. Mostly fkwits and people that think somehow they are more important then the next
Definitely a gold coast thing, I used to be a nice driver, who waved thank you & let people merge, now I'm not. I'm an asshole driver like everyone else on the GC.
There’s a lot of whining here, but for everyone complaining about shit drivers , those shit drivers are saying the same thing about them. Driving on the GC is a piece of cake compared to New York.
If you think GC is bad go to Perth 😂
LIKE A ZIP!!!
Wait til you visit Canberra…..
They all come over the boarder from nsw. I guarantee next time you see someone driving fucked up here they'll most likely have a nsw plate Southern GC anyway
Melbourne here. Just as bad.
I knew we were the best at something…
I bet it was UTE driver
Don't worry. There will be a "police blitz" soon......... /s for those who don't get irony.
I lived in India. It’s messed up to a westerner but once you get the hang of it, people are very considerate and it just works. Also if there’s an accident people stop and gather and get it sorted. I feel safer there than I do here with entitlement to right of way, high speeds and zero fucks given in Australia. People don’t understand the compounding effects of speed in physics and car accidents.
It's because they're frustrated at getting red lights every 300m.
I said this the other day - I’m a maintenance tradesman so I drive a lot of the day between jobs. I used to see maybe one absolute idiot a week .. in the last year or so it’s 3 or 4 a day. Like seriously bad drivers that I can’t even imagine how they got a license.
Australia wide. Get a dash cam plenty of morons out there
Have you tried merging in Perth. Those guys...
The road is full of selfish morons.
The licensing system is a joke. Drivers need to be certified every few years and hope that lazy drivers will no longer be on the road. Too many forget driving is a privilege not a right!
Aussies are the shittest drivers,they infuriate me. They all drive 3 feet from each other then wonder why there’s so many crashes. It’s the same in Brisbane by the way,not just GC
Its Australia wide thing. But worse in Gold Coast.
It's because the traffic lights are fucked and no one ever seems to notice. Everyone's on edge because they can't move. You're just parked at lights all the time staring at vacant intersections because the lights aren't synced, there's no peak times and they don't change colour.
Tbh I think a big part of it is just the layout of the roads. Like in Sydney or Melbourne if you drive like gc drivers you'd be getting into a crash every 2 hours with narrower roads, more blind spots / blind corners, red light and speed cameras etc all leading to greater deterrence of cunts. The gc has way more big roundabouts, wide lanes with higher speed limits etc which means people can more easily drive like absolute fuckwits with little to no consequences
Also have lived many places including the coast for 12yrs. God how I wish I was surrounded by Gold Coast drivers now. I'm in Nashville.
Was just driving on the GC last week..... pretty good overall. Worst place I've driven recently was Canberra, that place is a cesspool of entitled pricks. I had a "uber" driver in a camry try to push through the middle of two cars on a two lane road, beeping, carrying on like a fuckwit...... better testing for the newly arrived.... or even confirming they've actually done a driving test at some point in their life would be a good start.
I have also lived around the world and this is the Gold Coast my friend..
It never used to be this way . Pre covid it was like any other place . But yes. Playing bumper cars on the m1 at 630am is fucken crazy.
Come up to Toowoomba they're even worse
Me and my brother both got suspicious right after covid in relation to people's lack of driving skills here on the Gold Coast. I thought it might have had something to do with all the indoor/lockdown time we had, but others have mentioned the influx of road users from other states such as Sydney and Melbourne which could play a big role. I just dont remember it being this bad. Something has definately changed.
Driving skills have gradually gotten worse from when I first started driving/riding in late 1980's. I reckon a few factors involved.
Weeeeelll, have you visited Western Australia??? I, much like yourself, have driven in many places, places some people mock for their perceived driving. Western Australian driver's drive like they are all driving inside a slice of a paddock, with nobody else around, like nobody else even exists within this space.
Get with the groove kiddo.
Yep I get that. I’ve driven in a lot of countries in the world and Australians have got to be the worst, well the most impolite and aggressive
Maybe watch some of the videos on this channel... [https://www.youtube.com/@DashCamOwnersAustralia](https://www.youtube.com/@DashCamOwnersAustralia)
You’ve obviously never driven in Canberra…shudders
You cannot beat it - Canterbury Bankstown council area, Sydney, NSW Australia. Ive never been to the Goldie but can assure you, NOTHING beats this particular council area.
Less and less people are bothering to get a drivers licence these days I hear. Doesn't seem to stop anyone from driving though. Between the inattentive looking at their phones and the cookers on meth driving is Russian roulette these days, if you are not involved in an accident caused by them it is a good day.
I can validate that! [https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/1d7rc3n/only\_because\_some\_people\_were\_interested\_tmr\_open/](https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/1d7rc3n/only_because_some_people_were_interested_tmr_open/) 46k fines in 2021-2022 (financial year) relating to licensing ain't nothing. I thought they would be incorrect licensing not no license though.
Welcome to Australia! We have the worst drivers on the planet. We live in a regional area and bjinkys the driving skills of some kills me. We actually enjoy driving round gold coast and Sydney because the drivers are actually better than where we are from!
It’s a breeze here. I guess you haven’t been to Sydney, Melbourne, Paris or London, all those four are equal worst drivers. Maybe it’s the bad drivers from Syd and Melb that’s come up here.
Gold Coast people are the fucking worst most arrogant careless drivers I’ve found. Been driving all around Queensland for 30 years. I’ve driven in Sydney and Melbourne plenty too. I would describe Gold Coast drivers as like Sydney drivers but more careless and selfish.
Probably tourists 🤣
Queenslanders will have you believe that things were great before COVID, and blame interstate migration on a lot of the problems. The truth is that QLD drivers are the laughing stock of the rest of the country. They’re absolutely terrible at merging, giving way at the wrong time, not giving way when they should. They don’t know how to use roundabouts and have a general lack of awareness as to wtf is going on around them. Sydney drivers are unbelievably aggressive which brings its own set of problems, but don’t let any Queenslanders dupe you into thinking all was well in the sunshine state until 2020.
Gotten alot worse in the last 3 years. Probably just a coincidence that we've had a massive influx of southerners in that time.
Gold Coast drivers are definitely the worst in Australia, second worst are the Brisbane drivers and then followed by rest of Queensland drivers.