Fly Ted Down Under Journeys through the land of Oz

Marvelous Melbourne

AUSTRALIA | Saturday, 4 June 2011 | Views [333]

Most intersections have a white box conveniently painted on the road, to show where to park yourself while waiting to turn. As you can see, this van is about as far over and as far away as it can get from where it wants to go, with cars going straight ahead driving past it on its right, and it will have to cross the entire intersection to make its right turn.

One cannot spend time in Melbourne without learning about hook turns. Watch how it's done in the next series of photos. Hook turns allow for the trams to have right-of-way on the main streets, and are not held up by cars waiting in the middle of an intersection to make a right-hand turn. First, notice the sign at the top, hanging over the street. A car turning right must hug the far left side of the street, letting through-traffic and trams go past on their right.

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The light turns red, which means green for a hook turn, and away they go – darting across the huge intersection to the far left-hand lane. As you can see, the opposite light is now green, so these cars are directly perpendicular to the line of traffic going straight through. In most cities there would be furious honking of horns, but in Melbourne they know, green does not mean go, not for a few seconds at least...

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Fly Ted Down Under Journeys through the land of Oz

Marvelous Melbourne

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