We were particularly interested in the street signs of Melbourne. New York doesn't seem to have many traffic signs so the number of signs in Melbourne struck Tass as quite significant. My father worked for the Department of Main Roads and was absorbed in the problem of traffic flows through the inner city. He died when I was 18 while in the grip of an obsession about traffic lights. The study of traffic had a strange attraction for me.

Another growth that has taken over Melbourne in the last two decades is the roundabout. The firsts of these were just being installed when I was driving Tass around. It's quite a marvellous thing, the roundabout, though we probably take them for granted now. Some of you might remember that before the roundabout motorists were forced to abide by the `give way to the right' rule. This was an annoying and dangerous convention. It meant that in approaching any intersection it was necessary to slow down and first, look to the right and make sure there were no oncoming cars in that direction, and then, look to the left and hope that the oncoming cars worked with the same rule that you did. The great problem with the `give way to the right' rule was that it was all in the head. There was nothing out there in front of you as a point of mutual reference for you and the other driver.