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Welcome to A1 Driving School’s Driving Guides

New Zealand is world renowned for its driving holidays and tourists love nothing more than to rent a car in New Zealand and hit the open road.  Especially in the South Island with its beautiful scenery and winding roads. It can be hazardous however due to things like weather changes, speed limits and road conditions. Also driver fatigue can play a factor. On occasion we New Zealand drivers see tourists taking regular breaks on the side of the road or in urban areas. 

Our driving guides can give you all the information you might need if you’re an international tourist that may not be used to how we drive on the left. Or if you're new to driving and wanting to learn as much as you can, our guides can assist you with driving in New Zealand.  Contact us if your interested in any of our driving courses.

Leaving And Stopping At The Curb: An Overview [With Videos]

Leaving The Curb To Take Off Into The Traffic Flow

When leaving the curb to take off into the traffic flow, the first thing we should do is make sure the car is ready to go. That means the engine is on and we have selected “Drive”. We also make sure that the hand brake is released.

We then check the rear vision mirror and right outer mirror to check for approaching traffic from behind. We also have a good look ahead to make sure there is no traffic coming towards us that’s turning across our path.

We put the indicator on the right, and we keep checking the 2 mirrors until it’s safe to move off. Once it’s safe, we check our blind spot on the right-hand side to make sure we are aware of any hazards coming from our right. We release the brake and steer slightly towards the right so that we move away from the curb. We increase our acceleration if it is safe to do so. We have a look ahead to scan/search for any information that is given to us. Once we are settled, we can check the rear vision mirror to see what’s behind us.

What steps to take when stopping on the side of the road

When stopping on the side of the road, we first need to look for a safe and legal place to stop. Once we have found a safe place to stop, we put our indicator on the left. We check our rear vision mirror and potentially our left outer mirror. In this situation, we do not necessarily need to do a blind spot check on the left side unless we are changing position on the road for more than 1 meter. We ease off the accelerator and gradually move towards the left. Once we get closer to the curb, we start to brake. Initially, we brake firm so that we approach the curb slow and we can judge the distance from the curb properly. As we get closer to our stop, we can ease off the brake pedal a bit to make our stop smooth. It’s important that we are not focusing on the curb too much but look ahead instead. We are likely to hit the curb if we look at the curb (hand-eye coordination). We can use our left outer mirror for judgment to see how far away we are from the curb, but we can only do this while we are driving straight, otherwise, the front wheel might hit the curb. Once we have fully stopped, we can put the car in park and apply the handbrake.