Spending millions of dollars on road improvements on the Captain Cook Highway seems to me to be a complete waste of money.

Why? Because no matter how much money you throw at a problem you can't influence a person's decision making, especially the kind of person who appears to have a lower IQ than the road itself.

Pardon the pun, but I can almost bet my life that each and every time I travel to and from Cairns there is a driver who will put lives at risk. It's a fact.

What can be done to stop people passing on double lines, over-taking on bends, over-taking three or four or more cars at a time as a vehicle approaches in the other direction?

Have I just reached that boring old age where I tell my friends and family "It's not you I'm worried about, it's all the other idiots on the road".

It's a pretty sobering site to see so many crosses bearing fresh flowers lining the highway. They are impossible to miss. But somehow the message doesn't get throught.

And I don't think it is tourists who are to blame. Why would they bother speeding along one of the most beautiful stretches of coast in Australia?

I reckon the problem lies with locals who are so impatient they'll risk a head on by overtaking one car going 95km/h to sit behind the next one going at the same speed.

I'm writing this piece 30 minutes after witnessing exactly that on the stretch of road between Mossman and Port, just before the notorious intersection that turns left off the highway into town.

Will a roundabout fix that section of road? I hope so. But you can't build a roundabout every 100 metres between here and Cairns (although Cairns has clearly tried).

Maybe speed cameras are the answer, maybe not. But luck runs out eventually.

How's that for sounding old!