During a recent holiday in North Haven, near Port Macquarie, we witnessed many examples of irresponsible, destructive behaviour by 4WD drivers on the beaches, including speeding and fishtailing near our young children, their grandmother and our pet. We saw another vehicle driving up and down the dunes, over the sea grass and other vegetation, and we saw the sheer unsustainable number of vehicles on the beach.

We found it wasn’t safe to walk along those beaches as a family.

When I challenged one driver, he said, ‘Haven’t you seen the sign? This is a non-walking beach.’

The assumption was that the beach belonged to 4WDs.

And it isn’t just the irresponsible drivers doing the damage. Every vehicle that drives over a beach kills crabs, eggs, microfauna - the life of the beach.Every vehicle alters the beach surface and impacts the migration of sand up to the dunes. Every vehicle compromises the beaches’ capacity to cope with storms and erosion.

Let’s remember too that these beaches are the life of coastal businesses and communities.

It raises the question of who polices the beaches. When any of us drives along a street, we see signs, line markings and road signals that show us what we can and can’t do. There are none on the beaches of Port Macquarie. No speed signs. No line markings, obviously. We didn’t see any police or rangers. The driving is essentially lawless.

And for what? So these people can drive along the beach? What are the benefits here, and what are the costs?

The days are gone when it was thought to be ok to treat the environment like it doesn’tmatter. The time for these vehicles on our beaches is long gone. It’s banned completely in Victoria. Let’s end it here as well.