"NEW ZEALAND" a New Zealand Travel Page by pedroswift

My lowly contribution can be seen below in travelogues on road trips we have enjoyed in both North Island and South Island.
One aspect of driving in New Zealand in which you may be interested is the danger. I have found drivers, mainly in the North Island, very impatient. Aggressive "tail-gating" is a national sport.
New Zealand is a "young" land-mass and the non-weathered landscape makes for much beauty but also for landslips along most roads. On the North Island, road works are every where.... Road works with attendant speed reduction signs: usually 30 kms. New Zealand drivers take those signs as advisory only. If you slow down to the 30kms, expect to have someone driving a metre from your back bumper. I usually drive at the speed limit posted & for my own safety on my last road trip used every opportunity to pull off the road to let the cowboys & kiwi princesses past.
I drove in Portugal in great trepidation a few years ago after reading in Lonely Planet Guide that Portugal has one of the world's highest road accident rates. Be advised it has accident rates per head of population much lower than New Zealand!
It is no surprise for me to find that the number of road accidents in NZ is about half the total for Australia each year despite the population of NZ being one fifth that of Australia. I also note the majority of accidents are speed related - "losing control of vehicle on corners"; "losing control of vehicle on straight roads"; "head on collisions" account for more than half of the car accidents.
Drive with great care: don't become a statistic.

Take care at one lane bridges. There are many narrow bridges requiring traffic in one direction to "give way". Great caution is required approaching said bridges even if you are the driver with "right of way".

The Postman
Be aware that often roadside letter boxes are arranged in rows on one side of the road. The postman drives his van "on the wrong side of the road" to access the letter boxes from the driver's window. Don't be surprised to come round a bend & find yourself "nose to nose" with a red van!

Don't under-estimate the time expected to reach your destination. It will always take longer than you think. Winding roads with lots of bends, wet/icy roads, land-slips and road works will conspire against you.
Plan short trips each day. Don't try to accomplish too much. Fatigue is fatal.
Two fatal accidents involving European tourists driving hired camper vans which occurred during the time of our last visit were attributed to "fatigue" while speeding to complete an ill-planned itinerary.

Roadside Litter & Visual Pollution
Generally speaking NZ roads are litter-free except for a few instances close to cities. The worry to me is, where the litter is noticeable, it is usually empty "sports drinks" cans. Are all those tail-gating aggressive drivers high on stimulant-rich canned drinks????
Thankfully, the most prevalent roadside signs are entreaties by road safety authorities to the drivers mentioned above to "slow down and save lives"!

New Zealand has some unique road rules. Check them out before you drive:
http://www.landtransport.govt.nz/overseasdrivers/driving-in-nz.html
May help you to avoid being a statistic.