Migrants used to other motorist's insults

Jessie Lin has been in New Zealand for only five months, but is already well-acquainted with Kiwi attitudes to Asian drivers.

She finds it easier driving in the lower volumes of traffic here than at home in Taiwan, but admits she struggles with driving on a different side of the road and is confused by roundabouts and some road signs.

"At roundabouts I wait longer, because I'm not sure which way. I think maybe two or three seconds. The car behind [toots] its horn," she says.

She has also become used to abuse. In one case rubbish was hurled at a car she was a passenger in. "I don't understand why. I think maybe because I drive too slow. I am driving carefully," she says.

Korean student Wooha Baek owns a Nissan Bluebird and learned to drive in New Zealand.

He finds it "pretty easy" compared with the fast-paced, inner-city streets of Seoul.

"New Zealand people are very slow."

Candy Park, who arrived from Korea 18 months ago, says she has had several arguments with motorists who tell her to go back to her own country.

She says that even though she has done nothing wrong, they threaten to call police.

"I say, 'You call police'. I never make mistakes. Why do they always complain?"

Bo Kim, who arrived from Japan five years ago, also finds driving in New Zealand a breeze compared with the busy streets in his home country.

But he does admit to having driven the wrong way up a one-way Christchurch street.

"I didn't know about Christchurch at night-time.

"In Japan the signs light up at night-time. In New Zealand they don't light up."