I only seriously considered getting my driving license last year. I made previous half-hearted attempts, once when I turned 18, and again in 2020, but never stuck with it. Upon further research, I realised NZ was much more car-centric than I expected. In my past travels, I got around fine using public transport, or getting a taxi/ride sharing apps. In order to properly explore the country, I would need to know how to drive.
As an employed and a functioning member of society in 2023, I could only attend driving lessons after work. It has been pretty well-established how confusing and frustrating it can be to get a license in Singapore, but this was the only option. It was not ideal, but I grit my teeth and reminded myself that this would be worth it for NZ.
I opted to learn manual rather than automatic, partly out of pride, and partly out of the fact that I might as well learn a new skill fully if I was going to be spending money to obtain a license. Succeeding on my second driving test attempt, I was now a licensed driver on the roads as of July 2023. The only problem was, my trip to NZ was not going to be until 7 months later.
If I left for NZ as I intended to in August 2023, driving would still feel familiar. I now had plenty of time before my trip. I wanted to practice with car sharing/renting apps, but I needed to have a license for a year at minimum. Thus, I had zero practice before my trip, and my first time driving would be on foreign roads. I drove very briefly in Melbourne in March, and that was all the warm-up that I would have. Prolonging the inevitable, I told myself that I would get settled in NZ before buying a car. Truthfully though, I was just afraid of driving for the first time in a new country.
This procrastination lasted for about two weeks. Getting anywhere in Auckland took a minimum of 40 minutes by bus, and if you missed your bus the next one was 30 minutes away. The sheer loss of time frustrated me enough to start looking for a car, fear be damned. I went car hunting for two weeks with a fellow Singaporean who also started her working holiday in March. Taking bus after bus traversing car dealerships around the city, each trip would require 60-90 minutes. In those bus journeys, we would reminisce about how much we took Singapore’s public transport system for granted.
As the car dealerships were out of our budget, we resorted to Facebook Marketplace and backpacking groups instead. The prospect of buying anything from Facebook sounded suspect, but I purchased an old Toyota Corolla from a Japanese couple. They had even converted the back to a full-size bed, which was handy.
It’s a lovely car, and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my drives. However, I was nervous driving for the first time on roads, and it wasn’t long before I ran into trouble while driving. Auckland is a busy city with tight roads, and I’m not used to driving on roundabouts since they are rare in Singapore. During an afternoon drive, I turned left early on a roundabout to avoid hitting another car that was coming through. In a few seconds my Toyota started sputtering and shaking violently.
A flat tyre in the middle of the CBD at peak hour. Perfect. There was a side road leading to a housing estate, so I quickly took that turn and parked the car. Luckily, I had bought car insurance, so AA NZ1 replaced my tyre for free. I was slightly shaken after that incident for a few days, but the only way to get better at something is to practice. So I kept on driving and thankfully I’ve been grand since.
After driving for a couple of months, I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do now. Having the absolute freedom to just get from point A to point B whenever you want to especially in a nature-rich country like NZ is great. The car is also an additional “home”, almost akin to a third place2 if it were stripped of all community.
For now, I’m slowly getting used to driving for longer periods of time and nighttime driving, but I can totally see why some people prefer cars as a mode of transport. It is faster, more convenient, and you don’t need to deal with crowds. There are many other downsides (I now understand the pain of trying to find parking), but I’m glad I can explore more of the country with a car. I definitely won’t have a car in Singapore anytime soon since it is ridiculously expensive and public transport is (mostly) excellent, so I will savour the pleasures of driving a car while I have one.
- New Zealand Automobile Association. ↩︎
- A while ago, I began to notice that a lot of people (usually Americans), always tend to post videos on social media from their cars, and this always baffled me. Why not post from your
room, or somewhere else? My instinctive theory on this is in countries with a strong car culture, the car is type of personal shelter where you feel comfortable and free to express yourself. Also I guess if you’re renting in a house, your flatmates and landlords don’t want to hear your hot takes or unhinged opinions so the car is the next best option to film your Instagram/Tiktok videos. But I’m sure minds much smarter than me probably have some form of sociological explanation for this behaviour. ↩︎