The best gift you can give your family is to be there on Christmas Day and to ensure your family is too.
That is the message for drivers for the Christmas-New Year holiday season.
Police are urging motorists to make safe decisions and be aware they are out in force.
The current police Operation Charger will run through the holidays to midnight 27 January, targeting drink and drug driving, speeding and restraints.
Fatalities on near-Gympie roads this year included lives lost in single-vehicle crashes – a 44-year-old Maryborough woman and a 52-year-old Gympie man, pronounced dead at the scene of a single vehicle crash at Curra on 23 January; a young woman who died after a crash on Corella Rd, Gympie on 28 October; a 62-year-old Imbil woman who died after crashing at Belli Park on 20 November and a woman killed at Amamoor on 14 December.
Other vehicle deaths included a man in his 70s on 23 February, a motorcyclist on 4 October, both at Bauple and a 19-year-old Cooloola Cove man at Gunalda three days later.
They followed the death of another young man on Neerdie Rd on 1 June.
Wid Bay Burnett region recorded half of the 10 Queensland traffic incidents in one horrific weekend at the end of September.
Police said the crashes were too often caused by speed, alcohol or inattention, and not necessarily on the part of those killed.
Fatigue crshes have prompted repeated calls for drivers to remember they are supposed to be on holidays and to take breaks.
