Ask Phoebe: Flashing lights need permission

Rubbish collection trucks use flashing lights to warn other road users that they stop often. Photo / Sarah Ivey

When driving around Auckland I get disconcerted at the number of vehicles I encounter, other than ambulances and police cars, which display flashing roof lights needlessly. Trucks, vans and utes, apparently just en route, display warning lights with absolutely no reason to. In the country, rural mail vans have a red flashing light. Why? They're only delivering mail, not attending an emergency. Are there any regulations governing the use of such lights? Keith Hamilton, Milford.

Indeed there are, Mr Hamilton. The Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004, a very useful document, states in Part 8.5 (Use of Beacons) that a beacon must be approved before use.

As well as outlining the use of red, blue, green and white beacons, the rules say that an amber beacon may be fitted to a vehicle in accordance with a traffic management plan approved by a road-controlling authority.

It also allows for the use of an amber beacon when the vehicle is going to be stopped or driven slowly and where other road users need to be aware of this.

In all of these cases, the beacon must be approved.

Quite why some Rural Mail people would use a red light perplexes me, as I have never seen one. Perhaps someone could let us know?

I am interested to know why New Zealand is the only country in the world, to my knowledge, where road markings are written backwards and upwards. Thus we find instructions such as "Entry No", "Way One", "Only Lane Bus", and, my favourite, "Zip a Like Merge". Could it be that as we live below the Equator our sign painters feel that they should write upwards? Brian Armon, Auckland.

Alister Harlow, executive director of the New Zealand Roadmarkers Federation, says the words are painted in this order because that's how they appear as you approach them. Of course, your perception of the spacing and the order varies according to the speed you're doing.

The federation is currently working on a new system of road marking that appears flat, in much the same way that logos on a playing field appear flat when you see them on TV. These logos look flat because they are set up that way for fixed camera angles.

The difficulty is that while playing fields are level (although perhaps not politically or financially), roads have cambers, and the angle of viewing varies between the driver and the passenger, and also according to the height of the vehicle.

I was recently driving on Sandringham Rd towards the new motorway to the airport. At the Mt Albert Rd lights we had the green, but the car in front of me stopped to let a right-turning vehicle cross in front of us. Is this correct behaviour? John Poole, Auckland.

The Road Code says that at a green light, if you are turning right, you give way to vehicles coming towards you that are going straight through. So the oncoming vehicle should have given way to you, assuming that they didn't have a right-turn arrow, which I would think was unlikely, given that you had a green.

But discretion is often the better part of valour, as the driver in front of you possibly decided.