We're back!

We spent the festive season with extended family in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales. The drought was well and truly broken while we were there ... think torrential rain, wild surf and local flooding.

On our return, and as luck would have it, we beat the flooding of the Pacific Highway by a couple of hours.

It's been eight years since I've done the drive north from Sydney to Queensland. The highway has improved with some nice stretches of dual carriageway, but a lot of it is still the two lane goat track remembered from decades ago. I suppose that's why the authorities have chosen to regularly punctuate the inferior bits with fixed speed cameras.

The cameras are effective in making this driver aware of his speed, but you have to wonder their overall effectiveness when Victoria scored the worst road toll between Christmas and New Year. This is the state littered with cameras, but unlike other states, they don't warn drivers of their location, a move that various road safety "know it alls" have been advocating for years.

When you consider that Victoria has arguably the best roads and the strictest road laws in the country, their woeful Christmas road toll shows that punitive measures aimed at drivers don't always have the desired results.

And one other thing ... Would the NSW authorities please get some consistency when allocating speed limits on dual carriageways. Various sections of the Pacific Highway were posted at either 100 or 110 km/h with no noticeable difference in layout or facilities. These can lead to nasty consequences during periods of double demerits.