It’s a topic that unites Kiwis and is bound to come up at family gatherings and BBQs this summer.

Whether they’re weird, dangerous, confusing or just under maintained – people love to have a good old-fashioned moan about the roads.

Kiwis are being forced to face bad drivers on winding and narrow roads, countless potholes, confusing roundabouts and other baffling road-related situations.

This is part three (the finale) but part one and two are just as good, folks. Here are the links for the first, and second if you missed them.

1. Winding, narrow roads

While many of New Zealand’s roads are difficult to navigate by design, they’re made worse by unsafe driving.

Earlier this year, a video was posted anonymously online showing a campervan driving on the wrong side of a narrow and winding road outside of Dunedin.

These types of hilly, windy, and narrow roads are not uncommon in New Zealand, and can be nerve-wracking – but even more so when you’re facing bad driver behaviour.

2. Dangerous Tauranga intersection

One reader suggested the intersection of State Highway 29 and Cambridge Rd at the Tauranga end might just be one of the worst.

Traffic coming from the Kaimai Range can either go straight ahead – with priority – or take the unfettered left turn onto Cambridge Rd towards Bethlehem.

Traffic trying to exit Cambridge Rd is on a stop sign, and left-turners must wait for a break in the unceasing Kaimai traffic.

But right-turners have to take their lives in their hands, they said, waiting for a break in the traffic and also waiting for the right-turners into Cambridge Rd to also make their dash for the gap.

Traffic builds up for kilometres on Cambridge Rd.

And then there’s the fraught business of approaching from the Tauriko side and waiting to turn right into Cambridge Rd.

Once you have made that turn, you then have to give way to SH29 traffic swinging in from the left.

The only way anyone ever moves is if kind drivers approaching from the Kaimai Ranges side voluntarily stop to let traffic turn.

But that doesn’t help the poor sods trying to turn right from Cambridge Rd.

“If ever an intersection was crying out for a roundabout, this is it,” says the reader.

The current SH1 and SH29 intersection, between Hamilton and Tauranga, is a T-junction that regularly backs up 51m in afternoon peak periods. Photo: Tom Lee/Stuff.

3. The notorious SH29, SH1 intersection, near Cambridge

Speaking of SH29, an intersection on the Hamilton, Piarere, side of the highway is notoriously dangerous and is set for an upgrade to a roundabout.

The current intersection, between Hamilton and Tauranga, is a T-junction that regularly backs up in peak afternoon periods.

The intersection is a key connector for Auckland, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty but it's been called "one of the most dangerous intersections on New Zealand's roading network”.

The issue is that it's difficult to turn right across traffic into SH1 from the giveway intersection (but given the large volumes of traffic and speed, you usually need to come to a complete stop).

The speed limit drops from 100kph to 60kph past this area, but it's still tricky to turn into (and people love toat least partially ignore the speed drop).

Between 2017 and 2021 there were 22 crashes, two deaths and three serious injuries.

Traffic was at a crawl along Customhouse Quay. Photo: Robert Kitchin/Stuff.

4. Traffic lights madness

There are 14 sets of traffic lights from Wellington Railway Station to Chaffers New World, which is a 1.8km stretch of road.

It’s a lot of traffic lights, and it’s slow-going – especially in peak traffic. I wouldn’t be travelling in the capital city without allowing for extra traffic woe time.

5. Seemingly random give way intersection

Auckland’s McCullough Ave in Three Kings was suggested by another reader, because it has a give way at the intersection with a side road (Smallfield Ave) even though the bulk of traffic travels continuously along.

To make things worse, they said it was difficult to see traffic coming unless you stop well beyond the marked-out give way line.

There was often confusion as to who gave way, especially as the road centreline markings were continuous with McCullough Ave.

Dunedin's peanut-shaped roundabout. Photo: Hamish McNeilly/Stuff.

6. Peanut shaped roundabout

This one isn’t dangerous, and was in fact created in an attempt to make a Dunedin roundabout safer.

It’s a bit unusual, though, and might take a bit of getting used to.

It was thought to be one of the country’s few peanut-shaped roundabouts, but it cost anything but peanuts (the final cost was a whopping $2.4 million).

The roundabout on Forbury Rd, in the Dunedin suburb of St Clair, was announced by the Dunedin City Council in 2019.

The uniquely shaped roundabout was needed because of the layout of the intersecting roads. It was designed to make the crash-prone area safer and more attractive.

Fun fact: In Hamilton, a similar shaped roundabout – that connects Knighton Rd, Cameron Rd and Clyde St – is known by many as a “bean-about”.

The view from The Press office in Christchurch shows the Gloucester Street concoction of planter boxes and seats. Photo: Aiden Williams/Stuff.

7. The bland Christchurch street that's now full of paint, bollards and planter boxes

It's normally an unremarkable street in central Christchurch.

But in the last two weeks it has morphed into something else entirely with paint, bollards, planter boxes, one-way routes... and chaos for a 10-week trial.

Lit up by road cones, Gloucester St – home to many businesses including the Isaac Theatre Royal, The Press/Stuff Christchurch office and Tūranga library – has been undergoing work for a “people-friendly” and “inviting” makeover since November 14.

The narrower and slower road will be the new normal for commuters both on foot and behind the wheel before a permanent decision in June, 2024.

As work is carried out, commuters must navigate an awkward-looking one-way system, until a two-way lane and 10kph limit is implemented.

Blocks of gold and burnt orange-coloured paint are scattered down the street, some accompanied by stencils of native Nikau palms to tie in with the palm trees outside the connecting Cathedral Junction.

Hamilton’s Five Cross Roads roundabout. Photo: Christel Yardley/Waikato Times.

8+9. Roundabouts with two entry lanes and one exit

This is one that gets those of us new to a place, or visiting.

It’s roundabouts where two lanes enter but there is only a one-lane exit, and Christchurch’s Sockburn Roundabout is an example.

Lane markings on Main South Rd indicate two lanes heading north (and straight through) but there's only a single lane exit.

Some vehicles in the inside lane cut across the path of outside lane vehicles continuing on round to Blenheim Rd.

Similarly, Hamilton’s Five Cross Roads roundabout.

You guessed it – and yes, very original, I know – it has five roads that intersect.

It connects Peachgrove Rd, Fifth Ave, Boundary Rd, and Brooklyn Rd.

You’ll be driving down Peachgrove Rd, wanting to head straight through the roundabout towards Wairere Drive.

As you approach the two-lane roundabout, the outside lane features a straight through and left turn arrow.

The inside lane looks similar, with two arrows. One looks suspiciously like a straight through arrow but has a slight bend and the other is a right turn.

You could be mistaken for thinking it’s also a straight-through option. It’s confusing, and being cut off is a common occurrence (as is aggressive honking and road rage).

10. Potholes

What feels like an increasing number of potholes is a national gripe.

State Highway 5 between Napier and Taupō was amongst the roads where they were growing in size and number.

Axel Alexander, a Hawke’s Bay-based truck driver, told Stuff earlier this year that some roads were in a shocking condition at present “and it’s really pure luck that a bad crash hasn’t been caused by someone swerving to miss one of these things”.

“There’s a guy who lives at Te Haroto [about halfway between Napier and Taupō] who spent hours helping about 20 people change tyres on Saturday night. There are heaps of tyres and rims getting damaged by the potholes. It’s no small expense fixing a wheel rim,” he says.

-Rachel Moore/Stuff.