So. The Give Way rules changed, and so far we’ve survived.

There were no spontaneous combustions as a result of thinking too hard, no widespread rioting against the change, and no reports of people simply giving up mid-intersection and walking away from their cars in tears.

I thought this might be an appropriate time to reflect on the general psyche of the country before the change. Firstly, the hilarious gaffe by the government, who chose to select the date of April 1 as the perfect time for the rule change. Thereafter, much discussion and concern that New Zealanders would think it was an April Fool’s joke. Really? The general population are likely to think that the government is just pranking them? With something as insignificant as a road rule that affects the ENTIRE COUNTRY? Yikes. But fair enough, I suppose the government have done some mighty silly things in the past. Perhaps we should frequently assume we are being pranked…

Anyhow. I helped with a project to build a place for people to practice the new rules online – www.giveway.co.nz. We had over 330,000 hits, and soon the emails starting flooding in. Of course, a contact form just screams to be filled out!

I am amazed at the general hatred of cyclists. Or ‘lycra-freaks’ as one gentleman chose to call them. We were often accused of staging an unrealistic scenario: “Since when have you ever seen a cyclist signal, let alone stop??” and comments to the effect that the new rules would be a good ‘excuse’ to enforce Darwin’s theory, with cyclists not among the fittest who would survive. Wow. And that was about the nicest thing anybody said, many of which I really can’t repeat.

We had some great suggestions for additions to the site. “I think that if you get an answer wrong the site should link to a street fighter type road-rage fight.” Awesome. Criticism came colourfully too. From those who didn’t enjoy our design: “Was your designer asleep at the wheel? Drinking and driving his computer?” and those who were upset about load speed: “This website loads slower than an Auckland Port worker.” Ouch.

There were plenty of constructive suggestions too though, especially for how to deal with the change. “I’ll just stare them down until they let me go first.” “I plan to not stop at all, ever, then everyone will have to let me through,” and of course, “buy a green car, then you’ll always have right of way!” One guy’s email address field had been filled in to read ‘grip seat with thighs and hope’.

Since the changeover, the stream of messages has quietened down a little bit. I’ve actually starting missing them. After some of the more confused emails we got, I did have some concerns about how we’d all fare on the roads on Sunday, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

How did you get on? Feel free to email me…. but please, no nasty comments about cyclists!