Where are they all?

On Christmas Day, Sharon and I travelled about 250km visiting both parents' houses for Christmas Lunch (her parents at Clarence Town) and Christmas Tea (my parents at Kanwal).  I have referred to the Victorian Transport Accident Commision's Ad already in a post before Christmas Eve, and have also seen NSW's offerings of warnings about police everywhere and double demerit points.

But on this trip which included quite a long way on the F3 between Ourimbah and Black Hill in both directions, WE DID NOT SEE A SINGLE POLICE CAR!!!!!  We saw a lot of traffic, and despite it being Christmas Day, the incredible selfishness of drivers was so prevalent.  People tend to not drive courteously these days.  The attitude is "I'm all right Jack, Bugger you, mate".  The main problems we saw were:

  * People not anticipating the road ahead sufficiently.
  * The frequency of tailgating
  * Inapproporiate lane choices
  * Pointless speeding in traffic areas (we catch up at the next traffic light anyway, guys)
  * Travelling far too closely on the freeway (both fore and aft and left and right).  Why travel in a bunch???
  * Speeding up after being passed on multi lane roads

We didn't see any accidents, nor did we come close to any collisions, so I can be thankful for that.  There is an incredibly low standard of driving out there, however.  People need to be tested more than once in their lives, and I reckon that'll be the next magic bullet to reduce the road toll.  The first was seatbelts, the second Random Breath Testing.  The third will be Regular Driver Testing.  Let's see how long it takes for it to be introduced.  Maybe every ten years at the start, but preferably increasing to every five.