I want to bring back the wave.

Bring back the wave.  No, not the Mexican wave.  The “thank you for not being an ass and for letting me into your lane” wave to prove courtesy on the roads is not dead.

I live in Sydney.  I expect bad traffic but it is still the bane of my existence.  On average I spend 2 hours a day commuting.  Multiply that by 5 days per week = 10 hours.  Multiply that by 46 weeks (allowing for annual leave, public holidays and sick days) and that equals a whopping 19.166 days a year I spend in the car just getting to and from work!  I get 20 days per annum annual leave, to put in into perspective.

I live 17 kilometres from work and on a bad day it can take an hour and a half each way.  17 kilometres should take 25 minutes. 

Sydney peak hour traffic is about jinking and weaving and most importantly; making sure you leave just enough distance between you and the car in front of you so if the traffic stops all of a sudden you WON’T run up its backside BUT not too much of a gap so that you allow a car to sneakily dart in, thus causing you to slam on your brakes and risk someone running up the back end of you! 

Apparently; 3 seconds is a good indicator of how far the car should be in front of you.  I kid you not.  Somewhere the other day I read that some organisation out there recommends 3 seconds.  How do you measure 3 seconds?  In my day it was half a car length, or maybe a car length (we also walked 1o kilometres to school in the rain with no shoes, but that's a whole different story).  That’s how long ago my day was, I can’t quite remember.  BUT I do know it was not 3 seconds.

So I’m throwing it out there, bring back the wave.  It costs nothing.  It’s polite.  And by waving, maybe next time you are jinking and weaving in and out of traffic, the person you cut off won’t think you are such an ass.  Or if they do think you are an ass, they might think you are a polite one.

Important side facts:

Sydney driving is about remembering that some people got their drivers licences out of a Cornflake packet (or bribed their local RTA – link as follows to prove I am not making this up:  http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/dmdocuments/pub2_9ia1.pdf). 

Of course I do not take away from nor wish to be confused with Melbourne driving (hook turns, I ask you, hook turns across 8 lanes of traffic in front of a big metal tram), Queensland driving (U turns, anywhere anytime, no indicating required), Tasmanian driving (more than 8 cars at a set of lights constitutes a traffic jam) or any other city/town/suburb of Australia.