Are We There Yet?

I’m here!

I have survived the constant requests for food, refereed an unusually high number of squabbles, and visited almost every public toilet between Melbourne and Adelaide today on our first (and possibly last) family roadtrip…and you can add two unscheduled piddles at the side of the road (the kids..not me…I haven’t done that since I was pregnant….and very, very desperate!) I don’t care what you say, if you had a watermelon bouncing around on your full bladder you’d do the down-trow and pee anywhere too…right? Oh come on…it can’t be just me!

Anyway…as is common on a Saturday night when I am cradling pouring a well-earned bottle glass of vino – this post has taken an unexpected turn. What’s say we get back on track? Lol!

Back to the story…

So, in between my optimistic, but largely unsuccessful attempts to get some shut-eye (we left home at 3.30am and I’m not shy about telling you that I was feeling…and unfortunately looking, and possibly smelling a little like a dried out, sun-baked dog-poo by 7am) I attempted to keep Hubbster company.

I even offered a few times to take over the driving…because I knew full-well that Hubbster would refuse, but it would look as though I was willing…even though I was far from.

But one thing did make me sit up and take notice, shortly after we crossed into country South Australia.

This…

The MAC Prevent Mate Morphosis campaign

and no..it does not read Don’t drink and drive like a rooster….or a chicken, as a friend of mine thought!

After a quick Google on my phone, I found that it is part of the MAC’s (Motor Accident Commission) campaign to reduce the roadtoll on Country South Austrlian roads.

Country South Australians make up 30% of the population, yet [they] account for 60% of people killed in road crashes.

There were 592 people killed or seriously injured in rural crashes in South Australia last year – 216 were aged 16 to 29 years.

Over 60% of these young people were males. In a serious crash, young males are usually at fault.

Sobering statistics aren’t they?

Even more sobering is the fact that many of these deaths are caused when our mates turn into idiots on the road.

But what if we had the power to prevent that? It’s true that in the country we have to spend more time behind the wheel, we travel greater distances at higher speeds and we drive on more challenging roads. That’s just where we live and where we drive. And we can’ t change that.

But we can change how people drive.

So when our mates turn into people who speed, or don’t wear a seatbelt or drink and drive, just tell them they’re acting like a real MAC webite – Preventing Mate Morphosis

I really like them. I know they will stay in my mind for a long time, and being from a little town in country Victoria I think they’d go down well in our community.

To my mind the sense of humour is distinctly Australian, (I can’t imagine them along the roadside of any other roads in the world!) and they appeal to the importance Aussies place on the values of mateship.

Here are another two signs we came across on the road.