The Kiwi Rule

Driving in NZ is pretty sweet, the only thing that catches out new arrivals is the `give way to the right' rule, aka the Kiwi rule. Simply described, if you are turning left, you must give way to anyone turning right. They are actually getting rid of this rule next year, and I expect it to be carnage, but in the mean time, I find the rule really interesting, for a number of vaguely computer science related reasons.

First of all, assuming people do everything right, it shouldn't matter whether you give way to the right or left, as long as there is a protocol, then everything should work out. Which is our first computer science lesson (or rather software engineering) - you have to design for the error cases too...

When it works, the Kiwi rule is good as it improves overall contention at a junction, although it is a little counter-intuitive why. With give way to the left (the UK/Aus convention), you often get queues where someone wants to turn right, but there is a steady stream of cars coming in the opposite direction, either straight on or turning left (I'm assuming its just a turn off a main road). The car turning right has to wait for a gap in the traffic, which may not come for some time. In the give way to the right system, the car only has to wait until someone wants to go left, which occurs more often than a gap (well, a gap will suffice also). You might think this just means you get a queue on the other side of the road, but the car turning left only has to wait for no cars in the opposite direction turning right, which is actually the common case. So, wait times, and thus queues, are reduced. In comp sci terms, you adopt a clever scheduling algorithm to reduce contention.

Of course, there is no free lunch. Contrary to most road rules, signalling is essential to the Kiwi rule functioning. If someone accidently leaves on their left indicator, when they are actually going straight on, they can cause a crash if someone else coming from the opposite direction thinks they can turn right. Likewise, if the car turning right forgets to indicate and the car turning left therefore doesn't give way. So, for the Kiwi rule, signalling changes the semantics of the protocol, and this means incorrect signalling can lead to crashes, kind of like an unsound type system, or possibly a language where the type system affects the semantics.

So, for the sake of safety over speed, it's probably a good thing it is being scrapped; but I will be sad to see it go, it seems to me like a formalisation of politeness in driving, and fits nicely with the NZ attitude to life.