So many seemingly small things are also conducive to reducing risk. Drive your dark coloured or grey car with the headlights on at all times (low beam). Keep a clean windscreen, especially when driving into the sun, but also avoid washing your windscreen while driving into the sun. Be aware of oncoming traffic that may be facing the sun, perhaps you won’t be seen. Remember that your ute is not designed to be a performance car, and won’t behave like one on the highway (despite the implications of some TV ads). Keep a long gap in front at all times, doubling your speed requires four times the braking distance. A large gap provides time to see, assess and react to what is occurring in front. A gap of less than five seconds at 100km/h or more will make it challenging to avoid trouble comfortably. Know your speedometer error to avoid becoming a frustrating road block.

Frustration, rightly or wrongly, causes impatience and poor decision making by others. A loaded car behaves very differently from one that isn’t and most of us don’t know how to retrieve control of a car or ute that won’t stop as expected, or begins fish-tailing at speed. Drive at a speed that is appropriate to the conditions, rather than just legal. If your tyres are down to their last, replace them before you go on holidays rather than after, aquaplaning is much less likely on new tyres. Steering smoothly and accurately avoids sudden steering inputs that are destabilising at any time but especially on a loose surface or in the wet. 

Patience is a virtue. Have a great holiday.

When are our gutless political masters going to face the truth and see the daily current road carnage as it really is, and support the police with sensible and deterrent initiatives?

Unlicensed, culpable drivers, stolen vehicles, police chases, drug driving, cowardly hit an runs, high-range alcohol driving and road rage attacks causing death or injury need to be re-classified as major crimes and not misdemeanour like.

Why is killing or maiming through deliberate action in a motor vehicle a lesser crime than by other means? Kill or maime with a gun or other weapon, you will quickly be incarcerated, not likely given a suspension or bail to treat with contempt and continue to offend regardless with deadly result. And then, in most cases, go on to receive "forgiveness" from our courts.

These boundaries of reality have well and truly been crossed. This situation is now nothing short of "road murder" and/or "road grievous bodily harm". These actions should immediately be re-classified as such in the criminal code with court enforcement.

How many more shocking cases of these crimes killing innocent families, family members, kids and others, must we see before there is action taken to remove these low-lives from society? It's time to show some intestinal initiative pollies. Go to the carnage with police and ambulance, to the hospital, to the morgue, to the family home, the funeral/s, the court process. Then you may just take some action.