Gridlock

Hairline cracks found in a concrete overpass feeding onto the main motorway running through the centre of Brisbane have closed the road and resulted in gridlock in the city centre. Bus routes have been changed and people are flocking onto trains - the whole system is apparently at breaking point.

It seems that Britain isn't the only country with a groaning transport system.

My experience of driving over here is that the system is based on a grid system with traffic lights at many junctions. So it's a very stop-and-start affair. The sequencing of the lights doesn't seem to be particularly intelligent - that is to say that you can sit at a set of traffic lights on red whilst no traffic whatsoever is there to go through which light is green at that time.

Also something to get used to is choices of lanes. Sometimes a left lane will turn left, sometimes a right lane will turn right, sometimes not. Lights will allow a left or right turn only sometimes, leading to irritation when you want to turn right, say, but someone is in the right hand lane in front of you but wants to go straight on, but can't because the straight-ahead light isn't lit. Often it's necessary to predict what lane you'll need to be in two or three junctions in advance.