New Zealand Immigration Night

Keep the left line: "directionality" mistakes must not be made.

One of the most common signs in New Zealand is "drive on the left". As a Commonwealth country, New Zealand practices right-hand driving, but many foreign tourists, overseas students and new immigrants will subconsciously make "directional" mistakes when driving, leading to serious traffic accidents. Therefore, in addition to setting up the warning of "driving on the left" on the dashboard and in the car, New Zealand has also set up road signs in various places to remind them repeatedly.

After correctly grasping the "direction", be careful of ground animals when driving in New Zealand. Cattle and sheep can be found everywhere in New Zealand. Although the farms on both sides of the road are built with wire fences, it is still impossible to prevent individual animals from "breaking through the defense line". Especially when a cow weighing hundreds of kilograms collides with a car, the consequences are terrible. Set up road signs to remind drivers to protect animals and humans.

Another feature of New Zealand is that there are many geothermal signposts. Located at the junction of the Pacific plate and the Indian Ocean plate, New Zealand is one of the three major geothermal states in the world (Iceland and the United States are the other two), and its geothermal landscape is rich and colorful. The street sign "high temperature 100℃, please don't enter" aims to remind pedestrians: you can only watch from a distance and don't play!

Preventing "trapeze" can be said to be a feature of New Zealand street signs. New Zealand is a paradise for extreme sports such as high-altitude swings, ecological zip lines and bungee jumping, and it is also the birthplace of modern bungee jumping. Although the mortality rate of these sports is extremely low, and the incident of pedestrians and vehicles being hit on the ground has not happened yet, once it happens, it will cause double disasters. Therefore, some street signs use pictures of bungee jumping to remind pedestrians to be careful of "angels coming down to earth."

Calm and detached: humor and self-deprecation are serious

New Zealand's street signs are rough and gentle, serious and humorous, and self-deprecating.

New Zealand's mountains are steep, and local people have erected "three-dimensional" road signs in some dangerous areas: "Cliff ahead, bring your own parachute"! The implication is that driving here requires a driver's license. Ordinary parachutes can bear up to 200 kilograms, so it is obviously impossible to lift a 2-ton car. This street sign humorously reveals the harsh reality that "the mountain road is difficult and the cliff is difficult to rescue".

Also in dangerous areas, New Zealand also likes to use famous virtual characters to achieve the warning effect. The The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which won many Oscars, was all shot in New Zealand, so it became a realistic version of "Middle-earth" in people's eyes. Gandalf in the film is a real "one-man-power, above ten thousand" man, who resisted thousands of troops with one hand. A street sign with the image of "You can't cross" and Gandalf is perfect. It can be called the exclusive authorization of dark wizard and the exclusive signpost of "China-Turkey"!

Exaggeration is a common sign of humor in New Zealand. The advance of "5 kilometers" in the road sign "Animals First 5 kilometers" is sometimes extended from 10 km to 1600 km without restriction. For New Zealand with an area of only 270,000 square kilometers, 1.600 kilometers is the distance from the southernmost point to the northernmost point of New Zealand. In other words, this road sign is humorously reminding drivers: hold the steering wheel tightly, tighten the safety string, be careful to catch cicadas, and be careful to sail for thousands of years!

Even in the face of natural disasters, New Zealanders will not change their humor. 20 1 1 An earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale struck Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand, on February 22nd, killing 182 people and leaving urbanization in ruins. Since then, the reconstruction work has progressed slowly, and correspondingly, various self-deprecating street signs have appeared. Signs of "downtown disappearing" or "downtown lost" appeared on signboards not far from the city. There are also street signs that use New Zealand's characteristic words "broken" and "destroyed" to express "inner monologue" under the name of the city, which is in stark contrast to another city on the street sign: "People are ordinary, we are unbearable!"

Watch the road: be careful to hit the flightless bird.

The car is on the ground and the bird is flying in the air. How could they collide head-on It turns out that before the arrival of humans, the only native mammal in New Zealand was the bat. Because there is no threat from natural enemies, the birds here gradually retract their wings, and most of them have poor eyesight and slow movements, and they can't escape at night. In addition, the light is dim at night, and the trees on the roadside block the driver's sight, so birds crossing the road at will are easily hit.

Kiwi, the national bird of New Zealand, is the most common warning sign. One of the gentlest street signs borrowed the tone of Kiwi: "Go slow at night and help us go home safely". The picture shows the kiwi mother leading her baby across the zebra crossing. If the driver doesn't show mercy, such a warm picture is likely to turn into a tragedy in an instant, and people can't bear to look straight. In Opito Bay, the largest kiwi colony in New Zealand, five kiwis died in a car accident from April to August in 20 19. The kiwi can live as long as 30 years and is the only rare species without wings. It's sad to die so early.

As a bird, kiwi moves lightly and "runs" fairly fast, while penguins, which are familiar to China people, stumble as if they were in the same place and are more prone to accidents. There are three kinds of penguins in New Zealand, namely the little blue penguin, the crested penguin and the endemic species yellow-eyed penguin. These lovely birds, no matter how many, belong to protected animals. To this end, the corresponding road sign reminder usually increases the advance: "Be careful, the penguin 10 km ahead."

What scares drivers most is the New Zealand brown duck. Not only do they cross the road slowly, but they also flock together. Road signs put forward stricter requirements for drivers: "Be careful day and night!"

New Zealand's innovative street signs, which embody humanistic care, are surprising and refreshing, and play a role in reminding and warning, and are worth learning from.