Why do we, the motoring public, have to suffer frustration and hypertension, traumas and the sheer madness of it all?

Probably because Orange must go close to being home for the worst drivers in the state with many of them aggressive and incompetent.

They don’t know the road rules, they speed, they force their way onto roundabouts and then change lanes on the way out as well as failing to use their left blinker.

Tailgaters are the biggest road aggressors.

What can be done? Well we could expand on a suggestion by 11-year-old Sarah in a letter to a Sydney newspaper who wants ‘senior’ drivers to display S-plates on their cars to “warn other drivers ...”

So just imagine what other plates we could issue in Orange: A for aggressive, S for speedhog, T for tailgater, L for lane-changer and I for idiot just for starters.

But for the record, the latest RMS figures show the most people seriously injured in NSW accidents in 12 months were 1,652 in the 40-49 year age group followed by 1,650 in the 30-39 year age group.

There were 1,133 seriously injured in the 17-20 age group and 1,282 in the 21-25 group. The ‘seniors’ who were seriously injured totalled 659.

So what’s that about S-plates?

Because we’re into a whole new year with 362 days still to go, the occasion seems to call for something more grandiose than a simple decision to give up drinking or stop kicking the dog.

But you’ve got to begin now if you’re ever going to improve yourself, learn to speak another language, go walking or win Lotto.

Soon, anyway.

Few of us make New Year resolutions because they’re something that goes in one year and out the other but why not make 2019 different and consider what you can do in 12 months.

To get fit you could start now and walk a kilometre a day but then if you waited six months and walked two kilometres a day you could get the same result.

So you can see the opportunities are boundless.

But have you thought how terrible you’re going to feel in July if you have nothing to show? Worse, have you thought how you’re going to feel in December if you still have nothing to show?

Of course the good thing about the start of a new year is that you don’t have to do anything on the spur of the moment. You’ve got 12 months to think about it.

Orange had a link, well sort off, in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race with the super-maxi Black Jack named after motor racing ace Sir Jack Brabham.

Its owner Brisbane multi-millionaire Peter Harburg was a close mate of Sir Jack who started his road racing career on the former Gnoo Blas track in Orange.

Sir Jack, a triple F1 world champion, was a regular visitor here for the Gnoo Blas races and the park around the old track is named after him.

He was given the nickname Black Jack because of his dark hair and stubble and his wily driving style.

The yacht Black Jack finished second in this year’s Hobart race.

Sir Jack would have been pleased.