If there is one thing more certain than flies in a Queensland summer, it is highway frustration on the south-east's major roads.



Last week I drove from the northern suburbs of Brisbane to Buderim to deliver a Christmas hamper to a veteran, only to spend two hours in the middle of the afternoon driving home.



For more than 20 kilometres of this journey, I was stuck in stop-start traffic with hundreds of other motorists. The reason for this horrendous traffic snarl was not an accident but, as I was to discover, someone wanting to drive at 60km/h in a section of highway were the speed limit was 110 km/h!



Traffic was coming up behind this driver and then coming to an abrupt halt before trying to pull into the right hand lane to overtake. This brought both lanes to a grinding stop, and added almost an hour to the trip.



Ah, the joys of driving behind a highway hog!



Yes, I know that 110km/h is the maximum speed, but the road rules in Queensland also make it an offence to drive "abnormally slowly in the circumstances". That is because this sort of driving causes accidents.



If there was ever a definition of driving abnormally slowly it is driving at 60 km/h, in a perfectly good car, on a 110 km/h highway.



Driving like this is, quite frankly, selfish, and stupid, and dangerous to boot.



So is inhabiting the right hand lane instead of leaving it free for people to pass within the speed limit. Too many Queensland drivers, however, think they have an entitlement to sit in the right hand lane and drive under the speed limit. It too, is an offence under the road rules.



All of this is forcing the Queensland government to spend massively on road infrastructure to eliminate congestion which is often avoidable in the first place.



The current Transport and Main Roads budget contains $556 million of projects in south-east Queensland associated with traffic congestion on our major highways.



If the handful of drivers who cause this congestion obeyed the road rules, then this spending could be reduced significantly, or spent on other things.



It's a shame Queensland Police don't bother to do something to enforce these elements of the traffic legislation. If they did, they would also do much to eliminate the frequency of accidents in the region.



While there were 243 road fatalities in 2015, the total number of people injured on Queensland roads over the last 10 years comes to well over 5300 per year. Of these, over 60 per cent are spinal injuries, including whiplash.



These are accidents Queensland can't afford.



They are costing Queensland motorists almost a hundred million dollars in insurance payments every year. That is because insurance companies recover the payouts from Queensland motorists as a whole.



The average insurance payout for even minor accidents over the last 10 years was $68,079. That jumped to an average of $144,021 for a moderate accident.

Much of this could be avoided if we enforced to road rules to fine the inconsiderate drivers who put us all at risk.



Holiday travel would be less stressful, and Queenslanders would be better off, if our highway hogs were brought to heel.