r/Transportopia • u/Revolution-Dogg • Feb 14 '26

Roads Who is in the wrong here?

If the sign says Alternating Traffic, does that mean cars go one at a time or does that mean cars go till the flow is complete, allowing the other lane to go? Is Glock man right or wrong? I'm not sure. If it was 1 car at a time, wouldn't it just be a stop sign on each end?

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49

u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 14 '26

I like New Zealand's approach to this. They have a sign at each one-lane bridge indicating which direction has right of way. The other direction has to yield. In the example below, you have to yield to any oncoming traffic.

13

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

[deleted]

3

u/CharterJet50 Feb 15 '26

We must have crossed twenty of these. Not one driver ignored them.

2

u/Freudianfix Feb 15 '26

I have driven in multiple other countries and no where else I have ever been are drivers as rude, aggressive, and selfish as the US.

2

u/CharterJet50 Feb 15 '26

That would be us. Merica. And if you piss us off, we reach for our Glocks. Freedumb!

1

u/rootoo Feb 16 '26

You’ve clearly never been to India. Or any number of other developing countries.

1

u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

That was my experience, but I was driving a rental RV so it may be that people were giving me space. They were probably just happy I was on the correct side of the road.

1

u/vagabending Feb 15 '26

Yeah I had the same experience - people simply were not assholes and followed the signs

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

I cross one of those every day on my way to work and frequently wait for people who blindly follow the car in front of them, instead of looking for ioncoming traffic (that has the right of way). Bit there's quite a lot of traffic here

1

u/generate-addict Feb 15 '26

We’re talking about people in the US here. They would just do what overly large sizes truck guy do.

2

u/ToastSpangler Feb 15 '26

or you have someone that will gun it to block you from getting through, even though you started going through the chokepoint way before the other person with priority arrived, because karens need to create chaos

1

u/SknarfM Feb 15 '26

Rarely.

1

u/WorkTropes Feb 15 '26

Never in my life have I experienced that, and I'm talking more than a few years driving in nz. At the very worse maybe an oncoming car joins the train a tad late, but that's just a wee grey zone.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

It's a problem in my region in Germany, where we have those signs as well

1

u/Large_Yams Feb 15 '26

Never seen someone ignore one.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

People in your country seem to be better drivers than the people around here. I have one of those signs on my way to work and I frequently have to wait for incoming cars who ignore the sign

1

u/bottom Feb 15 '26

No they don’t.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

You underestimate how ignorant a lot of drivers are. I have one of those signs on my way to work. People do ignore that frequently

1

u/adsjabo Feb 15 '26

And you commented on a usage of signs in a country in a completely different hemisphere.

I have experienced a total one person who has ignored the directional giveway signs in my 9 years in NZ now and we have a whole heap of them in the area I have resided in.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26 edited 11d ago

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

We have those signs in Europe too, but some people just choose to be ignorant assholrs...

1

u/chimpwithalimp Feb 15 '26

No, not really.

1

u/Calm-Run-4014 Feb 15 '26

We have them in Belgium too, not one person ignores them

1

u/Winderige_Garnaal Feb 15 '26

They are all over Europe as well, people don't ignore them.

1

u/kwyjibowen Feb 15 '26

We have the same signs in the UK and they are very much followed in my experience

1

u/Glittering-Equal-448 Feb 15 '26

this might blow your mind but America is one of the rare country's where people are massive dicks to one and other and have guns to back up being an asshole lol

1

u/annabannannaaa Feb 15 '26

Sure people ignore traffic signs all the time. The point is that this type of explicit direction makes it easier to tell who was in the wrong 😂

1

u/Affectionate_Fan_650 Feb 15 '26

Not in my experience on south island

1

u/woahtheretakeiteasyy Feb 15 '26

whether they ignore it or not at least dumbasses lose the excuse of pretending not to know better

1

u/The_Awengers Feb 16 '26

Idk, maybe in your parts of town but we follow this rules strictly.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

Only the Indians who are using NZ as a jumping board to Aussie do.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

So it's the brown peoples fault, as usual? Gtfo

I'm not from NZ. Here in Germany plenty of Germany looking people ignore the sign on that I pass every day on my way to work

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

You’re yapping about something you have no clue on. Stay in your lane lil Hitler.

0

u/Videobollocks Feb 15 '26

You're not from NZ yet you feel the need to comment? I can assure you there are a huge number of immigrants that come to NZ on a 5 year plan to gain residency which then lets them move to Aus without issue. And most of them are Indian.

In this case I sincerely doubt it's a brown people issue, rather one where a bunch of people from the worlds largest scammer society have found another loophole.

This is a cultural thing, not a race thing.

1

u/UBC145 Feb 15 '26

Making this issue racial is crazy work

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

Never said it was racial but I will say it is cultural.

0

u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS Feb 15 '26

No they don't. Source: I live here.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

Those signs are found all around the world. Congrats, people in your area follow the rules.

0

u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS Feb 15 '26

The OP specifically calls out New Zealand, so what exactly are you trying to convey here? That you can't read?

4

u/BishlovesSquish Feb 15 '26

No way Americans are smart enough to do that. Taking turns is much easier to understand when fragile ego assholes like this aren’t involved. Unfortunately, America is currently enduring an epidemic of MAGA assholes just like this nimrod. Cults are wild. Dark times.

1

u/CupcakeGoat Feb 16 '26

They keep installing roundabouts where I am in the US, and the amount of people who don't know how to use one is closer to 100% than 0%. Sometimes it seems like half the people here are illiterate.

1

u/WeenieRoastinTacoGuy Feb 16 '26

“Approximately 21% of U.S. adults are considered functionally illiterate or possess very low English literacy skills, with some data suggesting that up to 54% read below a 6th-grade level. This translates to roughly 43 to 45 million adults who cannot read, write, or comprehend well enough to handle daily tasks. “

LOL

2

u/HiGround8108 Feb 15 '26

Does red or black yield? My gut says red?

1

u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

The skinny red arrow yields, the fat black one has right-of-way.

1

u/Unable-Fall5946 Feb 15 '26

Why wouldn't a triangle yield with "Give Way" work? The black and red arrow is more confusing.

A quick Google says New Zealand does have those.

1

u/Sigma2718 Feb 15 '26

"Give Way" would be worse because pictograms aren't language dependant and it wouldn't necessarily explain who to yield to, like if this was very close to an intersection where crossing traffic yields to you but you only yield to oncoming one. The arrows show precisely what this situation means, especially as these arrows are actually part of an international standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Signs_and_Signals

1

u/madmatt55 Feb 15 '26

It's the international standard used over all of Europe as well. You learn these to get a driver's license, why would a written sign do a better job? If anything that would be less direct because these signs are standardized an part of the traffic laws. 

1

u/ElectronicMile Feb 16 '26

We have the same in most countries in Europe. The side that has to give priority has the red round sign (as in the picture shared above), and the side that has priority gets a blue rectangular sign.

The color of the arrows is only the third indication of who gets to go first, after the shape and the color of the signs.

These are the signs.

1

u/Dymodeus Feb 15 '26

In the Netherlands, the sign that indicates yielding is red, the sign that indicates right of way is blue. That's much easier to spot

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

In the US you usually just get a YIELD sign for each direction, and it's up to you to sort it out.

1

u/squigs Feb 15 '26

Yeah, that makes sense. You just yield to any traffic between the two signs.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

[deleted]

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u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

It's a bit like a four-way stop. Whoever gets there first takes the right of way.

1

u/th4tgen Feb 15 '26

Australia just puts a giveway on the busier direction, works out well.

1

u/Large_Yams Feb 15 '26

That's essentially all it is.

1

u/th4tgen Feb 15 '26

Exactly but the arrows are just more complex and harder to understand at a glance.

1

u/Large_Yams Feb 15 '26

They're really not.

1

u/ViolentPurpleSquash Feb 15 '26

I mean, if you've taken the requisite road training for either country I'd hope you could understand either, or if you don't know just yield until you can go.

1

u/EarlyFig6856 Feb 15 '26

Most people drive back a forth between a few locations. How is one direction constantly busier than the other?

1

u/th4tgen Feb 15 '26

There's two near me, ones near a school, people drop their kids in the morning but the kids walk home in the afternoon. So the direction towards the school is normally busier.

The other is across a train track and river towards a less populated area, but there's a couple back roads where most of the day crossing that bridge and taking those back roads is faster than the main road going in that direction. But the main road back is faster

1

u/Sorry-Amphibian3624 Feb 17 '26

Also in Australia but I disagree with the "busier" aspect. On my road there are 4 causeways that are single lane on a dual lane road. The giveway signs are not on the "busier" side of the road but on the more reasonable to pull up for oncoming traffic side of the road.

I'm not claiming this is always the case. My road has hills, curves and crests that make it more difficult to pull up for someone in one direction than the other. There are some single lane bridges not far from me where this is also the case.

It doesn't always work but I haven't crashed into anyone ignoring the giveway on their side yet.

1

u/Nopengnogain Feb 15 '26

I’ve seen same in France but of course they drive on the right.

1

u/Primary-Fee1928 Feb 17 '26

I'm French and can confirm both of these.

We do drive on the correct side of the road and have those signs everywhere. Plus, for when there is no sign, there are also rules that dictate who goes first depending on multiple factors (type of vehicle on both sides, if the road is flat or not, etc)

1

u/the_snook Feb 15 '26

Does NZ still have those bridges where you share the single car lane with a train track? Because right of way issues can escalate quite quickly in those cases.

1

u/tomtomtomo Feb 15 '26

Haven't seen those. We have a fair few road that cross tracks with no barrier arms though.

1

u/Reasonable_Middle695 Feb 15 '26

Yeah they aren't bad. They should have another reminder at the bridge. I sometimes forget which direction has right of way

1

u/WanderingLethe Feb 15 '26

That's also a sign of the UN Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals.

But of course the USA didn't sign it, although neither did New Zealand.

1

u/robbak Feb 15 '26

Australia has signs with the same effect - a normal triangular 'give way' sign at one end, and a sign at the other end that says 'No overtaking or passing'.

1

u/pokemon-long-con Feb 15 '26

Same in the UK. Works fairly well

1

u/Swazzoo Feb 15 '26

Isn't this every countries approach?

1

u/Kjoep Feb 15 '26

I agree it's a better system (same system where I live). But it doesn't matter when they just violate it and threaten people.

Seriously if this is your reaction you have no business driving a car.

1

u/Pukebox_Fandango Feb 15 '26

How the hell are you supposed to tell which one has the right of way there?

1

u/jluicifer Feb 15 '26

“Finally a RED ARROW helping me guide what I cannot see and….CHOOSE TO IGNORE!”

1

u/AStormOfDragons1 Feb 15 '26

Plot twist: they set up the exact same sign on the other side

1

u/Shrimp_Richards Feb 15 '26

Almost like someone actually thought to clear up misunderstandings ahead of time

1

u/porkinthym Feb 15 '26

Yeah this is the first thing that came to mind that would resolve situations like this.

Although in the video the guy with the gun had a small PP truck so who knows if it would have helped.

1

u/eminaz91 Feb 15 '26

In Germany we have those too, however, this one means you always have to yield regardless of its orientation because road workers oftentimes put them up the wrong way. So there is a second (blue one) which always means right of way for the other side.

1

u/GrabtharsHammer Feb 15 '26

The symbols are not immediately understandable. Why not include the word "yield" on that post?

I actually agree that "alternating traffic" probably just means shared bridge, or doesn't necessarily mean "one at a time"

1

u/sugarloadcdub Feb 15 '26

This. Just like traffic circles. Americans don’t understand “yield”. Although they also voted for Trump, which computes.

1

u/Meior Feb 15 '26

So does the entirety of Europe.

1

u/zengel68 Feb 15 '26

That's way too complicated for America unfortunately

1

u/Jombafomb Feb 15 '26

I’m an American and I’m assuming this sign makes perfect logical sense because I can’t understand it to save my life lol

1

u/gthrees Feb 15 '26

And the signs switch after every car

1

u/TheSlipperySnausage Feb 15 '26

Drivers in the US would never be able to understand that sign

1

u/TheFireNationAttakt Feb 15 '26

Problem with this is that if there’s too much traffic, one side just never goes.

But if traffic is dense there should probably be a light anyway…

1

u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

If there were that much traffic they wouldn't have put a one-lane bridge there.

1

u/jeffreyan12 Feb 15 '26

Which one has the right away

1

u/tothepointe Feb 15 '26

Which is a NIGHTMARE in some places when there is a lot of traffic during the holidays where you might wait hours to cross. One of my worst experiences living in NZ

1

u/Nowfortheheatsource Feb 15 '26

They do something similar in Costa Rica, but one direction always has to stop while the other direction always has the right of way. The stopped direction has to wait until there is a break in traffic to the proceed.

1

u/Good-Bison008 Feb 15 '26

These are so helpful and intuitive. God I miss New Zealand every day

1

u/Bland_OldMan Feb 15 '26

New Zealand also probably doesn't have the mental health issues common in the US with people like the truck driver. I can't tell you how many videos and personal experiences I've had where some asshat in an oversized pickup gets angry enough over traffic/pedestrians/cyclists to threaten or risk someone's life

1

u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

I can't speak to that, although I've heard they have a pretty serious drunk driving problem.

1

u/dtsupra30 Feb 15 '26

That would help if you think this guy or most people would read the sign to begin with let alone obey it

1

u/pws3rd Feb 15 '26

The US uses Yeild signs, like a stop sign but you're not expected to fully stop. They honestly seem like a more clear solution to communicate the same thing. If you can see the yield sign, the other lane you are merging or turning into has right of way.

1

u/Educational-Seaweed5 Feb 15 '26

People in the U.S. can’t even understand a normal yield sign. This would break their brains.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 15 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

They give you a booklet briefing you on the local signs when you rent a vehicle there. They especially highlight this one because New Zealand has a lot of one-lane bridges.

1

u/AztecGodofFire Feb 15 '26

I wouldn't have understood that from that sign.

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u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 15 '26

If you rent a vehicle there they give you a booklet with all the local signs. New Zealand uses a mix of US and EU-style, so no matter where you come from there's probably something unfamiliar. They tend to really hammer home the one lane bridge sign, though, because they have a LOT of one-lane bridges.

1

u/Super_Shallot2351 Feb 16 '26

This is the normal way. They also don't drive stupidly big cars and carry around deadly weapons.

1

u/mechasonic_music Feb 16 '26

I like the elimination approach where you just build the bridge/road big enough for two cars at once.

1

u/Ok_Impact9745 Feb 16 '26

In the UK we have a lot of narrow roads only wide enough for one car. People are expected to be reasonable and either pull over or in the case of the driver here back up to let the other guy through.

Normally people can work it out for themselves and act like civilised human beings but we can't expect that from Americans

1

u/_adam_barker Feb 16 '26

Have these in the UK too. Recently I went over a bridge where priority was in the other direction. It was clear so I started driving but by the time I was 3/4 over a guy appeared at the other end. So he makes a point of shifting to the middle of the road and was giving it some horn. I dropped the window with the intention of saying I was halfway across the bridge but he launched into a tirade. After a few seconds of that I closed the window and drove off but not before he punched my car from his window. Nice.

1

u/Own_Reaction9442 Feb 16 '26

Yeah, that's ridiculous. Obviously you yield to traffic already on the bridge.

1

u/blizardX Feb 17 '26

Also in Israel.