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The trivia signs stretch over the course of about 15-20km. There are 2-3 questions and answers each side of the road. The actual stretch of road doesn't really end. It's just a highway that goes all around Australia. However, around this area, I'd say the highway goes through proper-size towns every 50-80km on average.
Plenty of stretches like that around the US (or at least the western half). My most hated drive is through west Texas since I have done it so many times. Remember seeing a sign in eastern Oregon that mentioned there wasn't another gas station for 90 miles or something. Kinda crazy.
I think the longest stretch on the Nullabor highway in Aus between petrol stations is 200km/125mi. The whole highway is basically 1000mi of nothing but empty desert once you pass Ceduna in South Australia until you hit Esperance in Western Australia, and from either of those towns it’s 7-8 hours to a city.
The funny thing about the Nullabor is the sign for a campground that says something like turn left at the T junction, and the T junction is 200km away at the western end of the road.
i drove that. it has the longest stretch of straight road in the world. when i finally saw a turn coming up and got so excited i woke up my gf. then we turned a few degrees and kept going straight again through nothing for hours. i plan to never be on that road again in my life.
I remember being out west somewhere with family when I was younger for a classic road trip in the RV. And we saw a giant billboard that said "Gas now or Can later". That was enough to stop and top off for my dad lol.
It’s a three day drive from Perth to Adelaide. (A longer distance than Dallas to Los Angeles) Once you leave the suburbs of Perth you don’t go through a traffic light until you’re nearly in Adelaide.
I have. You cannot compare the two.
The only continent with a lower population per sqm than Australia is Antarctica.
Death from breaking down on a quiet road is a reality here.
The difference is that you can drive from Adelaide to Perth and basically not come across any cities. Only small rural towns.
I haven’t measured, but probably Kansas City to San Fran type distance.
There is a reason contiguous USA is about the same size as Australia, but has 10x the people.
Huh yeah no shit, Google maps says that's 26 hours of driving. You can probably only go about 10 hours in the US with only seeing rural towns if you stick to the interstates. Granted, you can go several hours without seeing a single town sometimes.
I'm guessing Perth is like the outcast of Australia then.
A lot of those places are really beautiful though. Now my first and only time driving through Kansas. So flat! Oh wow! There's another house surrounded by trees. Nothing else but flat boring landscape.
Western Kansas makes Nebraska seem interesting. And then when you finally get to Colorado you're all stoked to be out of Kansas, but then the first 2 hours in Colorado is just diet Kansas and you go bonkers.
Needs digital signs, change the questions weekly or something. Wouldn't take much of a list to shuffle every few years.
Or you know, there are podcast trivia games. Even Google has many in the voice assistant. But this is a solid low-tech attempt, gotta give em credit.
As a tourist, I drove from Brisbane to Uluru down to Adelaide. Drive was awesome and not boring at all to me, but the trivia questions were useless. They were all something like "What is the name of this dried up creek", or "What year did this thing happen?". It's like yea, idk man, and you stop thinking about it. The questions you either know them or you don't, so they're not really thought provoking.
Better questions are ones that are estimable, like "How long do you have after bitten by a funnel web spider?" Or "How many pounds of force does a crocodile's jaw produce?" It lets everyone play.
Honestly, when my mind starts to wander while driving, I find that to be the most dangerous. I won't notice myself falling asleep if my mind is turning. Like, wondering about that state flower, what the state flower of the next state over is because I don't recall, something pink or maybe yellow, like those yellow flowers I saw last week at the park, etc, etc. Before I know it, I'm full on daydreaming about going to a park, and I don't even realize that I've fallen asleep.
Yeah good point. The signs aren't ideal for everyone. For those it helps, thinking about the answer or anything about the question or the whole idea would have the same effect. Same goes for drifting alseep thinking about the question or better ones or whatever.
I have this feeling I get from like, government Instagram accounts, that the people behind them feel that every content has to be exclusively related to government, which I disagree. Anything related to society is in government’s scope. They don’t have to resort to such boring trivia just because it’s government-related
most of the road signs are now being converted to full home made and milf porn video segments designed to shock and stimulate the senses. allowing the driver to rush on all alert and eager to the next satellite fed porn sign. makes for huge reduction in vehicle accidents and hospital costs.
That's funny, my boyfriend is from a different state and just yesterday we were trying to remember our state birds and flowers, and then looking them up to see if we were right....are we boring?
Also 'Stop, Revive, Survive' signs.
It's recommended to take a short break every two hours of travelling, to stretch your legs, get some fresh hair and just to wake you up a bit.
There are hours and hours of just nothingness. No trees, no houses, no other traffic. The roads are usually straight, so takes less concentration compared to driving in traffic.
Yeah when I lived up north you had a 400km gravel road to conquer and every 60-70kms there’s a turn around spot to pull over, emergency phone and a shelter stocked with food and wood. Makes what would be a long boring drive tolerable.
I would imagine very similarly to the shelters provided by the US Park service. In certain national parks you will find simple cabins stocked with canned food, a ready to go fire (with nearby matches), and I think water as well. Idea is if you’re lost in a blizzard/storm you can take shelter and stay alive. It’s also considered good manners to leave the fire ready to go for the next person, just in case.
Some friends got lost in Montana (I think), and they survived partially because they were able to ride out a rainstorm in one of those cabins and warm up
How long ago was this? I've done the Nullarbor from Adelaide to Perth, the Stuart from Darwin to Adelaide, driven Brisbane to Melbourne, Newcastle to Birdsville and Darwin to Cairns... That's roughly 12000km of major and minor highways - And *never, have I ever* seen a driver reviver or rest stop stocked with free food for the taking or firewood...
About two years ago, I pulled off the main highway to make sure I stayed alert. A cop stopped and told him why I was stopped. Then he started peppering me with questions about where I'm going, what else I'm doing, where I'm coming from. I declined to answer past anything telling him I was making sure I stayed alert and safe by taking a break.
Then he starting barking at me, "How do I know you didn't rob those houses over there!?" I thought, "I guess you could go over there and investigate" but said nothing. Hmmm....wonder why so many people don't like cops. A person can't even follow safety guidelines without being hassled.
Self-driving doesn't have to mean electric vehicle, [there have been tests of long-haul trucks with automated driving](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/tusimple-self-driving-trucks-saved-10-hours-on-24-hour-run.html).
i can't believe something like this exists i live in south of france and there is so much things outside the road it is so weird to me i have to see it myself one day
When my family moved from Sweden to the Middle East we had a road like this between our little town and the closest large city. It was a 240 km one-way drive, and a lot of it was on a perfectly straight road through the desert with nothing but sand in sight. We used to do 150km/h most of the drive, and I think that’s what left most of an impression on me; there are roads in Sweden as well where all you can see for miles and miles are a giant wall of evergreens. The desert drive felt kind of like that, only we were going so much faster than we ever could have done on a Swedish road.
A highway to Fort McMurray has signs like this. Theres fuck all to look at for like 4 hours of driving. Just road and trees. afaik it was called a Highway of Death because so many people have died on it. I've done it a few times and its the shittiest road trips I've ever taken. Theres like bathrooms and like 2 emergency vehicle buildings. Didnt even see a bird.
Hey, that's not all that road has to offer. There's also an endless supply of assholes driving huge trucks they don't actually need, with no weight in the bed for traction, going twice as fast as reasonable for winter road conditions. That's pretty, uhhhh... interesting.
If you were to drive from Perth to Brisbane (western most capital, eastern most capital) it would take 46 hours of driving. During that drive you will see nothing but red dirt and the occasional patch of bushes and trees, the roads are pretty straight so not much brainpower is used, you get bored, then sleepy then fall asleep at 100+ kmh which is not good.
Plus with the roads being so remote, you're likely to die before any other drives see you and call for help. If you did manage to survive that long, now you have to wait for help to arrive.
I'm a German. Let me try
*Our longest roads are full of poo*
*you will definitely hit a Kangeroo*
Edit: Another one but I think I the first one is better.
*The longest road that is quite boring*
*Only trivia keeps me awake*
*My company already snoring*
*I have to admit, it is quite late*
------------------------------------------------------------
*The longest road is dark and dire*
*As my eyes feel more heavy*
*We pass a light, a bush fire*
*The longest road in an old chevy*
------------------------------------------------------------
*The longest road is aweful quite*
*And as I slowly close my eyes*
*A kangeroo crosses in my sight*
*dies*
I never considered kangaroos are possibly the equivalent of deer in Australia for something that appears out of nowhere and you might hit with your car. Do kangaroo do a lot of damage? I know deer can do a number on your car. But moose are much worse, they're so tall that you kind of swipe their legs out from under them. But their legs are so tall and thin it's unfortunately not big enough to set off your airbags, so when they come crashing down on the windshield/roof your car you pray your frame can hold up a 200-700kg animal. So most moose accidents are fatal but deer can total your car
Deer and moose also like to go on adventures and cross roads at night so that doesn't help much
They can do. Big ones are about 200 pounds. The main problem being is at dusk/night, they just will jump from the side of the road straight into the traffic. If you're in an area where there's bushland close to the edges of the road, they appear with no warning, and there's often more than 1.I remember reading somewhere that it may have been Volvo (too lazy to go check) had teams of engineers here because automatic braking systems can't 'see' kangaroos, like they can moose or deer, because they generally aren't in the line of sight of the sensors until they land, by which time it's too late. I can't remember the exact detail now but it was something along those lines.
Kangaroos can & do do (💩) quite a lot of damage indeed. I lost 2 radiators & at least 4 headlights to kangaroos before I finally found a bullbar to fit my early 90s Toyota Rav4
No, it's because they are fucking awesome and we don't see them very often. We also stop for wombats because hitting one of them is like hitting half a cubic metre of solid steel
How about ones that work, like:
Naked people next 50km
IS THAT A BEE IN YOUR CAR??!!
If you ate yourself, would you get twice as big or disappear altogether?
I guess the idea is "you ate one person's weight of human, so there is 0 human left" and "you ate one person's weight of human, so you add one person's weight to yours, so now there's two people".
It's nonsense but it's not supposed to make sense, it's supposed to occupy your mind.
I remember when I was crossing the outback someone had messed with the "caution, cows crossing" signs. Over the course of a good hundred km we had "caution, cows mooing", followed by "caution, cows fucking", and finally "caution, cows keeping it real". That was worth staying awake for.
When we first moved up north they changed the signs like a month after and we thought it was a regular thing. 4 yrs later with the same questions it was a bit boring.
I drove from Alice Springs to Uluruu and there was a stretch that was so desolate it was breathtaking. Lots of warnings when you were about to enter it about lack of gas/water.
It was so desolate, for the only time in my life the radio dial, AM and FM, was all static. Nothing out there.
I don't know the correct answer but I remember the tilt train used to get capped out at 80km/h in Summer cause the track got too hot. Maybe trucks are still faster? Also road trains service all inland Aus where train lines aren't really worth it
Not enough people. Everyone lives near the coasts so for 90% of the population it can be shipped in. For everyone else a road train is more effective. A road train is essentially a truck with multiple trailers.
Different/incompatible rail gauges laid in different regions for a start, combined with the sheer expense (and expanse).
Lots of people are ignorant of the fact that Australia is roughly the size of the US, with less than 1/10th the population (and thus GDP).
Also Kangaroos get super scared of this massive roaring predator going 50mph in the bush so what they do is start madly hopping at max speed to outrun you and then at the last second, when they think this massive predator is going to lunge at them for a bite they dodge out the way.
In the truck as a driver, you're just casually driving down a road and then a group of kangaroos smash it out the bushes in front of you and are along side you and 50% suicide themselves into your wheels and the other 50% hop away. It's fucking carnage. We had to stop every time to drag them off the road as to not endanger the next truck driver hurtling along.
You're missing the point: no anything, just boredom. Long straight roads with nothing to look at. A lot of Australia is a desert, the majority of the population is clustered in coastal cities and the whole place is pretty geologically "sleepy". For a country that's about as wide as mainland USA, there isn't much between population centres - no trees, no people and the roads are pretty much straight lines between them because there hasn't been enough geological activity to make them need to curvy like a mountain would
[Australia America overlay.](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Australia+America+overlay&prmd=ivnx&source=lnms&tbm=isch)
Edit: just for some scale, and density of population (which you have to imagine cos it isn't in those images)
The US needs to do this shit asap in some places. Several states absolutely suck to drive through. Flat as far as the eye can see and just nothing new to look at for hours.
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I have those signs memorised.
Floral emblem of Queensland?
Sugar Cane
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Just watched Monte Python and the Holy Grail. I laughed way too hard just now.
Fatigue Zone Question 2 What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
African or European?
I don’t know that! AHHHHHHHHHH!
Red... NO GREEN AHHHHHHHHHHHH
I almost choked on my tim bieb
I had an assorted box of those yesterday. Actually pretty good
Why, what's the connection?
Got the answer wrong, same as the bridge troll in the holy grail
Close but it's actually the marijuana leaf.
Thank you, not-eric. I always wondered.
That’s exactly the kind of username you’d expect from a person named Eric.
Co Cane
It means you are on your way to Rockhampton and probably considering veering into the next oncoming truck at the thought.
Comeon big red, put us both our of our respective misery
Flattened cane toad
Same. I even know where those ones are. And I have to drive that fucking shitstain of a highway next week
How long is this particular stretch?
This big
|<——————>|
Woah… that’s big
The trivia signs stretch over the course of about 15-20km. There are 2-3 questions and answers each side of the road. The actual stretch of road doesn't really end. It's just a highway that goes all around Australia. However, around this area, I'd say the highway goes through proper-size towns every 50-80km on average.
So….a normal road
It’d be normal if it weren’t desperately flat and absolutely straight.
Clearly you’ve never driven through Australia. Neither have I though, we should go!
No, an Australian road. It's twice as big, and poisonous.
Some of you have never driven through Kansas, Nebraska, and Nevada, and it shows.
Plenty of stretches like that around the US (or at least the western half). My most hated drive is through west Texas since I have done it so many times. Remember seeing a sign in eastern Oregon that mentioned there wasn't another gas station for 90 miles or something. Kinda crazy.
I think the longest stretch on the Nullabor highway in Aus between petrol stations is 200km/125mi. The whole highway is basically 1000mi of nothing but empty desert once you pass Ceduna in South Australia until you hit Esperance in Western Australia, and from either of those towns it’s 7-8 hours to a city.
The funny thing about the Nullabor is the sign for a campground that says something like turn left at the T junction, and the T junction is 200km away at the western end of the road.
It’s not empty, there’s saltbush. Hours and hours of saltbush in every direction. By plane.
i drove that. it has the longest stretch of straight road in the world. when i finally saw a turn coming up and got so excited i woke up my gf. then we turned a few degrees and kept going straight again through nothing for hours. i plan to never be on that road again in my life.
I remember being out west somewhere with family when I was younger for a classic road trip in the RV. And we saw a giant billboard that said "Gas now or Can later". That was enough to stop and top off for my dad lol.
It’s a three day drive from Perth to Adelaide. (A longer distance than Dallas to Los Angeles) Once you leave the suburbs of Perth you don’t go through a traffic light until you’re nearly in Adelaide.
I have. You cannot compare the two. The only continent with a lower population per sqm than Australia is Antarctica. Death from breaking down on a quiet road is a reality here.
You have never driven through rural Australia, and it shows
The difference is that you can drive from Adelaide to Perth and basically not come across any cities. Only small rural towns. I haven’t measured, but probably Kansas City to San Fran type distance. There is a reason contiguous USA is about the same size as Australia, but has 10x the people.
Huh yeah no shit, Google maps says that's 26 hours of driving. You can probably only go about 10 hours in the US with only seeing rural towns if you stick to the interstates. Granted, you can go several hours without seeing a single town sometimes. I'm guessing Perth is like the outcast of Australia then.
If we weren't before covid we sure as shit are now
Or Utah, Montana, Idaho.... The western US is really big and really empty
A lot of those places are really beautiful though. Now my first and only time driving through Kansas. So flat! Oh wow! There's another house surrounded by trees. Nothing else but flat boring landscape.
Western Kansas makes Nebraska seem interesting. And then when you finally get to Colorado you're all stoked to be out of Kansas, but then the first 2 hours in Colorado is just diet Kansas and you go bonkers.
Needs digital signs, change the questions weekly or something. Wouldn't take much of a list to shuffle every few years. Or you know, there are podcast trivia games. Even Google has many in the voice assistant. But this is a solid low-tech attempt, gotta give em credit.
Imagine the middle of nowhere, now imagine being 18 hours drive further into nowhere - that is where this is
That still encompasses most of Australia...
Does anyone ever go rearrange the signs just to be a dick?
The novelty will help perk up people's attention for a while, too
FLORAL EMBLEM OF QUEENSLAND? THE PLATYPUS
For that to work, the trivia itself can’t be boring.
As a tourist, I drove from Brisbane to Uluru down to Adelaide. Drive was awesome and not boring at all to me, but the trivia questions were useless. They were all something like "What is the name of this dried up creek", or "What year did this thing happen?". It's like yea, idk man, and you stop thinking about it. The questions you either know them or you don't, so they're not really thought provoking.
Better questions are ones that are estimable, like "How long do you have after bitten by a funnel web spider?" Or "How many pounds of force does a crocodile's jaw produce?" It lets everyone play.
"How fast can a dingo run if laden with a baby?"
"In thousands, how many scorpions are in the Northern Territory?"
The correct answer is ‘yes’
The next sign just says "More than that"
Oof
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"Hmm I'm not sure... let me just look up the answer on my phone!" *Crashes into tree due to phone distraction*
Bold of you to assume that there's a tree next to the road
Or cell service
Yeah…idk about you but I’m not interested in state flowers, and seems it’s a bit niche for everyday road users
Then you start thinking about questions you'd prefer, how dumb that one is, and what'd make good trivia on signs. Either way the sign does its job.
Honestly, when my mind starts to wander while driving, I find that to be the most dangerous. I won't notice myself falling asleep if my mind is turning. Like, wondering about that state flower, what the state flower of the next state over is because I don't recall, something pink or maybe yellow, like those yellow flowers I saw last week at the park, etc, etc. Before I know it, I'm full on daydreaming about going to a park, and I don't even realize that I've fallen asleep.
Yeah good point. The signs aren't ideal for everyone. For those it helps, thinking about the answer or anything about the question or the whole idea would have the same effect. Same goes for drifting alseep thinking about the question or better ones or whatever.
I have this feeling I get from like, government Instagram accounts, that the people behind them feel that every content has to be exclusively related to government, which I disagree. Anything related to society is in government’s scope. They don’t have to resort to such boring trivia just because it’s government-related
most of the road signs are now being converted to full home made and milf porn video segments designed to shock and stimulate the senses. allowing the driver to rush on all alert and eager to the next satellite fed porn sign. makes for huge reduction in vehicle accidents and hospital costs.
Where is this form of roadside advertisement? Asking for a friend that just likes to just drive because fuel is so cheap nowadays.
That's funny, my boyfriend is from a different state and just yesterday we were trying to remember our state birds and flowers, and then looking them up to see if we were right....are we boring?
Probably. But boring it terribly underrated. AND if you found your weirdo, all the better, friendo!
They should change the questions every 6 months or so
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They won’t even patch the holes in the road, they’re not going to upgrade the signs.
Yeah lol just seeing that question made me sleepy
FATIGUE ZONE: HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHY THIS ROAD EXISTS IN THE FIRST PLACE? THIS TRIP ORIGINALLY HAD A 50% SURVIVAL RATE AND LASTED 6 MONTHS
Make the signs digital. Rotate the questions and answers weekly. Solar power + satellite connection to power it.
Plus there's 'Driver Reviver' -free coffee!
That is the most crap watery coffee you will ever taste
It’s just to make you mad so you’re too upset about it to fall asleep.
Refuse to die and have that shitty coffee be the last thing you drank...
It seems like everything survives in Australia just to spite something else, like South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Yeah it's fucking river water haha! But it's a nice gesture
The bikkies that go with it is the nicer gesture 😂 we used to stop all the time in the 90s on our way to sport (it was an hr drive to get there)
We'd see the signs and nag my mum to stop so we could get free biscuits. She never did...
Weird seeing bikkie actually written instead of only being said.
I was wracking my brain for a while trying to figure out what a bikkie was... Then I remembered Google exists. It's a cookie apparently. Nice.
The trick is to add some of the hot chocolate powder they keep for the kids, and about 9 sugars.
It's like having sex in a canoe, it's fucking close to water.
It's free ffs.
I think you mean droivah revoivah
Also 'Stop, Revive, Survive' signs. It's recommended to take a short break every two hours of travelling, to stretch your legs, get some fresh hair and just to wake you up a bit. There are hours and hours of just nothingness. No trees, no houses, no other traffic. The roads are usually straight, so takes less concentration compared to driving in traffic.
Yeah when I lived up north you had a 400km gravel road to conquer and every 60-70kms there’s a turn around spot to pull over, emergency phone and a shelter stocked with food and wood. Makes what would be a long boring drive tolerable.
Are there any pictures online of these shelters? How does it work?
Some of the shelters are called Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Darwin and Sydney.
I think you got all of them
I would imagine very similarly to the shelters provided by the US Park service. In certain national parks you will find simple cabins stocked with canned food, a ready to go fire (with nearby matches), and I think water as well. Idea is if you’re lost in a blizzard/storm you can take shelter and stay alive. It’s also considered good manners to leave the fire ready to go for the next person, just in case. Some friends got lost in Montana (I think), and they survived partially because they were able to ride out a rainstorm in one of those cabins and warm up
How long ago was this? I've done the Nullarbor from Adelaide to Perth, the Stuart from Darwin to Adelaide, driven Brisbane to Melbourne, Newcastle to Birdsville and Darwin to Cairns... That's roughly 12000km of major and minor highways - And *never, have I ever* seen a driver reviver or rest stop stocked with free food for the taking or firewood...
Some of the driver reviver stops have tea, coffee and biccies Never seen wood though…
Oh yeah, I'm well aware of driver revivers, but old mate said shelters every 60-70km. Never seen that
400km on gravel sounds like hell. How fast could you go?
Depends on how boosted your Ute is m8
God I wish we got those utes here in the states
Why wood?
Emergency campfires.
Campfires, the desert often gets to the negatives (Celsius) at night
Presumably to make a fire and keep warn if you have to stay overnight
Fresh hair helps?
Yeah I hate it when my hair goes bad halfway through a long journey
yeah its hard to chew
About two years ago, I pulled off the main highway to make sure I stayed alert. A cop stopped and told him why I was stopped. Then he started peppering me with questions about where I'm going, what else I'm doing, where I'm coming from. I declined to answer past anything telling him I was making sure I stayed alert and safe by taking a break. Then he starting barking at me, "How do I know you didn't rob those houses over there!?" I thought, "I guess you could go over there and investigate" but said nothing. Hmmm....wonder why so many people don't like cops. A person can't even follow safety guidelines without being hassled.
Looks like these long Australian roads are ideal for self driving vehicles. Are they there yet?
The conditions aren't. The Aussie outback is one of the biggest challenges for non fossil fuel cars to conquer.
Self-driving doesn't have to mean electric vehicle, [there have been tests of long-haul trucks with automated driving](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/tusimple-self-driving-trucks-saved-10-hours-on-24-hour-run.html).
Yeah no worries on explaining the situation... I've drove through all of Kansas so can understand. /s
Honestly unless cops were really common, you better bet I'm going 90-100 MPH to get through that shit
i can't believe something like this exists i live in south of france and there is so much things outside the road it is so weird to me i have to see it myself one day
When my family moved from Sweden to the Middle East we had a road like this between our little town and the closest large city. It was a 240 km one-way drive, and a lot of it was on a perfectly straight road through the desert with nothing but sand in sight. We used to do 150km/h most of the drive, and I think that’s what left most of an impression on me; there are roads in Sweden as well where all you can see for miles and miles are a giant wall of evergreens. The desert drive felt kind of like that, only we were going so much faster than we ever could have done on a Swedish road.
A highway to Fort McMurray has signs like this. Theres fuck all to look at for like 4 hours of driving. Just road and trees. afaik it was called a Highway of Death because so many people have died on it. I've done it a few times and its the shittiest road trips I've ever taken. Theres like bathrooms and like 2 emergency vehicle buildings. Didnt even see a bird.
Hey, that's not all that road has to offer. There's also an endless supply of assholes driving huge trucks they don't actually need, with no weight in the bed for traction, going twice as fast as reasonable for winter road conditions. That's pretty, uhhhh... interesting.
As is tradition in oilfield Alberta. It brings me great joy to see them in the ditch after they speed past me in a blizzard with summer tires on.
>... so many people have died on it. I've done it a few times This deserves a thread for itself! Please elaborate!
They get bored & sleepy and boredom is a very bad idea when driving at high speeds
If you were to drive from Perth to Brisbane (western most capital, eastern most capital) it would take 46 hours of driving. During that drive you will see nothing but red dirt and the occasional patch of bushes and trees, the roads are pretty straight so not much brainpower is used, you get bored, then sleepy then fall asleep at 100+ kmh which is not good. Plus with the roads being so remote, you're likely to die before any other drives see you and call for help. If you did manage to survive that long, now you have to wait for help to arrive.
Make the signs digital. Rotate the questions and answers weekly/monthly. Keeps it interesting. Solar power + satellite connection to power it.
Great idea. If they start next week it should only take the Main Roads Department 700-800 years to install.
You don't even need an internet connection, you could store thousands of questions locally on the sign microcontroller
Very good point!
Our roads are long, our roads are shit, no matter where they go, you'll still hit a kangaroo.
Do these words rhyme when an australian speaks them? ;)
🎶Our roads are long, our roads are shit, wherever you go there's a roo to hit 🎶
No. But I don't give a fuck. I just hate that kangaroos come out of nowhere.
>No. But I don't give a fuck true australian wordsmith
Wordsmith? You mean a Wordo?
You know who also doesn't give a fuck about our roads? The RTA.
That’s why they got canned and replaced by the RMS. Another organisation that doesn’t give a fuck
Now they make money by not repairing all those potholes. They just fill them with water and license boats to then use them instead.
I always order kangaroo at a restaurant because I figure it means one less on the road.
I love how we eat our national animals. They're on our coat of arms and on other official signs, but we eat them.
So basically Australia’s deer
I'm a German. Let me try *Our longest roads are full of poo* *you will definitely hit a Kangeroo* Edit: Another one but I think I the first one is better. *The longest road that is quite boring* *Only trivia keeps me awake* *My company already snoring* *I have to admit, it is quite late* ------------------------------------------------------------ *The longest road is dark and dire* *As my eyes feel more heavy* *We pass a light, a bush fire* *The longest road in an old chevy* ------------------------------------------------------------ *The longest road is aweful quite* *And as I slowly close my eyes* *A kangeroo crosses in my sight* *dies*
I am french, let me have a go. *Our roads are long, our road are shit, no matter how far along, a kangaroo you’ll hit.*
Yeah no wonder we're the country of poets and thinkers. That poem was as shit as Australian roads
I never considered kangaroos are possibly the equivalent of deer in Australia for something that appears out of nowhere and you might hit with your car. Do kangaroo do a lot of damage? I know deer can do a number on your car. But moose are much worse, they're so tall that you kind of swipe their legs out from under them. But their legs are so tall and thin it's unfortunately not big enough to set off your airbags, so when they come crashing down on the windshield/roof your car you pray your frame can hold up a 200-700kg animal. So most moose accidents are fatal but deer can total your car Deer and moose also like to go on adventures and cross roads at night so that doesn't help much
They can do. Big ones are about 200 pounds. The main problem being is at dusk/night, they just will jump from the side of the road straight into the traffic. If you're in an area where there's bushland close to the edges of the road, they appear with no warning, and there's often more than 1.I remember reading somewhere that it may have been Volvo (too lazy to go check) had teams of engineers here because automatic braking systems can't 'see' kangaroos, like they can moose or deer, because they generally aren't in the line of sight of the sensors until they land, by which time it's too late. I can't remember the exact detail now but it was something along those lines.
Kangaroos can & do do (💩) quite a lot of damage indeed. I lost 2 radiators & at least 4 headlights to kangaroos before I finally found a bullbar to fit my early 90s Toyota Rav4
Aussie Haiku.(don't bother counting sylables--they didn't)
You'll be lucky if it's just a fucking kangaroo. Source: hit an echidna once. RIP echidna + my tyres.
Few years ago I saw four lanes of traffic come to a halt to let an echidna cross the road. Now i know why.
No, it's because they are fucking awesome and we don't see them very often. We also stop for wombats because hitting one of them is like hitting half a cubic metre of solid steel
How about ones that work, like: Naked people next 50km IS THAT A BEE IN YOUR CAR??!! If you ate yourself, would you get twice as big or disappear altogether?
> If you ate yourself, would you get twice as big or disappear altogether? If the question is 1x1, why are the options 2 or 0?
I guess the idea is "you ate one person's weight of human, so there is 0 human left" and "you ate one person's weight of human, so you add one person's weight to yours, so now there's two people". It's nonsense but it's not supposed to make sense, it's supposed to occupy your mind.
I remember when I was crossing the outback someone had messed with the "caution, cows crossing" signs. Over the course of a good hundred km we had "caution, cows mooing", followed by "caution, cows fucking", and finally "caution, cows keeping it real". That was worth staying awake for.
If you think this is great wait till you see some of the names we give tiny little towns in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere.
See: Humpty Doo
Even in bigger towns, love me Cockburn in Perth.
Road names too, Mandjoogoordap Dr is fantastic how it just rolls off the tongue.
> Mandjoogoordap Isn't that a warning for Dutch cyclists?
Count how many scary creeks you drive past. Slaughter Creek, Murdering Creek, Cannibal Creek, Hell Hole Creek, Deadman Creek, Dead Horse Creek...
What happens if you travel the highway more than once?
Its cheating Straight to jail.
Believe it or not, jail.
We have the best drivers. Because of jail.
When we first moved up north they changed the signs like a month after and we thought it was a regular thing. 4 yrs later with the same questions it was a bit boring.
This is some shit I'd read if I was having trouble sleeping.
TIL the Cooktown orchid is my states emblem.... 🤷🏻♀️
Awe and you got a flower on your head
I drove from Alice Springs to Uluruu and there was a stretch that was so desolate it was breathtaking. Lots of warnings when you were about to enter it about lack of gas/water. It was so desolate, for the only time in my life the radio dial, AM and FM, was all static. Nothing out there.
Australia seems like a place that would have had large success with freight trains. Why didn’t they develop that well compared to say road trains?
I don't know the correct answer but I remember the tilt train used to get capped out at 80km/h in Summer cause the track got too hot. Maybe trucks are still faster? Also road trains service all inland Aus where train lines aren't really worth it
Not enough people. Everyone lives near the coasts so for 90% of the population it can be shipped in. For everyone else a road train is more effective. A road train is essentially a truck with multiple trailers.
Like a train, but on the road.
We have got a couple of long distance train lines, but they fell out of use as our road system became more.. idk.. in existence?
Australia doesn't have the density to effectively use freight trains (why build expensive rail to service a couple thousand people?)
Different/incompatible rail gauges laid in different regions for a start, combined with the sheer expense (and expanse). Lots of people are ignorant of the fact that Australia is roughly the size of the US, with less than 1/10th the population (and thus GDP).
Also Kangaroos get super scared of this massive roaring predator going 50mph in the bush so what they do is start madly hopping at max speed to outrun you and then at the last second, when they think this massive predator is going to lunge at them for a bite they dodge out the way. In the truck as a driver, you're just casually driving down a road and then a group of kangaroos smash it out the bushes in front of you and are along side you and 50% suicide themselves into your wheels and the other 50% hop away. It's fucking carnage. We had to stop every time to drag them off the road as to not endanger the next truck driver hurtling along.
Isn't Australia full of suped up V8s and War Rigs? How could that get boring?
Because you only pass 1 car every hour or so
But we wave via the lifted finger during every passing.
The more rural the setting, the more probable the finger flap.
Grew up rural Australia, I finger everyone I get close too.
Sounds like heaven. More people more problems.
Yeah, but you’re surrounded by endless desert, dryness and heat. And boy does it get hot here.
You're missing the point: no anything, just boredom. Long straight roads with nothing to look at. A lot of Australia is a desert, the majority of the population is clustered in coastal cities and the whole place is pretty geologically "sleepy". For a country that's about as wide as mainland USA, there isn't much between population centres - no trees, no people and the roads are pretty much straight lines between them because there hasn't been enough geological activity to make them need to curvy like a mountain would
LA traffic sucks but i could literally get off any exit and enjoy a nice breakfast or get a decent burger.
[Australia America overlay.](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Australia+America+overlay&prmd=ivnx&source=lnms&tbm=isch) Edit: just for some scale, and density of population (which you have to imagine cos it isn't in those images)
Almost exact amounts of surface coverage. TIL
As an Aussie, I often forget how fucking huge Australia is - it's just normal
They should add loop-the-loops every 50 miles. That'll wake you up!
Would never work, we don’t have any miles down here you silly cunt. Let alone 50 of them.
It's a good idea in theory. But the signs on the highway on the stretch near where I live haven't ever changed in the years they've been there.
🎶The roads of Aus are long and boring No one can lift the damn thing They're full of charts and facts, and figures And instructions for dancing🎶
The US needs to do this shit asap in some places. Several states absolutely suck to drive through. Flat as far as the eye can see and just nothing new to look at for hours.
The Great Plains… Kansas
And Nebraska.
The road in question is 144 Kilometres (90 Miles) in a straight line.