ANN Whitfield is not the morbid type by nature, but the dog tags she had made up to take with her on her daily mail runs along the Mt Lindesay Rd are a trifle disconcerting.

"It's in case I have an accident out there and no-one finds me," the Australia Post contractor explains.

"There's no mobile reception anywhere between Legume and Woodenbong, so good luck trying to call triple zero if you're in trouble.

"I had the dog tags made in the event of a worst-case scenario - they have all of my personal and medical and contact details on them.

"You could go off that road and down an embankment or into a gully and they might not find you for days."

She's talking about the road dubbed Australia's worst and after driving back and forth along it every weekday for the last six years in a panel van Ann is probably better qualified than most of the road's users to speak with authority on the subject.

She is also spearheading a local campaign to focus political attention on the road, especially with a federal election in the offing.

"I could say I know every pothole but the reality is there are new ones every week," the cheery mail-runner says with a rueful laugh.

"It is absolutely atrocious, there is just no other word for it.

"The potholes, the uneven road edges and verges, the blind corners.

"I have no doubt in my mind there will be a fatality one of these days, the only thing that probably saves people now is that you really can't do more than 60 in most sections, it's that bad.

"School buses use it, truckies use it, tourists use it and they're the ones I worry the most about.

"People who don't know the road are in the greatest danger, and the things you see some of them do are unbelievable.

"They will sit right behind a truck and they don't realise how many blind bends there are and when a truck is going to have to slow down or stop suddenly, particularly if there is another vehicle approaching.

"And the trucks often travel in convoys of two or more, which you can't see if you're behind the last one.

Ann said wet and foggy conditions widely encountered during the winter months added "a whole other dimension" to the former highway, the treacherous state of which makes it hard to believe the road is the main freight and tourist link between the Darling Downs and the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales.

"Not long ago I took the opportunity to talk to some of the truckies where they gather at the border (just south of Killarney) near dark in the wet," Ann says.

"They couldn't give me a reason they run in convoy.

"It reminded me of young teenage girls who like to hold hands - they travel together for companionship.

"I gently mentioned that there are few opportunities to overtake and if they run nose to tail it doesn't allow anyone to get around them.

"They agreed with me but didn't care."

Ann said apart from the convoy mentality, most of the truckies were cautious and many of them knew her vehicle well.

"I do a lot of kilometres on the road, to Woodenbong and back and I also do runs each week to White Swamp," she says.

"People around here have been trying for 20 years and more to have something done but there's not enough votes in it.

"Tony Windsor is very much on the nose around here and there is a feeling Barnaby Joyce may have more sway if we have a Coalition government.

"A big problem is the border and the fact that it also involves dealing with two state governments."

The Daily News took a trip with Ann to film as video of the bone-jarring and white-knuckle ride that is the Mt Lindesay, and spoke to some of the other locals along the way.

Legume's Steve Freeman has travelled the road twice a week for work in Lismore for the last six months hand in that time his ute has racked up a damage bill of $5000.

It's so bad he now films every trip with a windscreen-mounted camera for police and insurance purposes.

"I've done two shockies, an exhaust and four tyres," the fed-up road user says.

"I've been forced off the road half a dozen times by trucks and very other week there's another windscreen chip or crack.

"It's a truckie's road, pure and simple."

Freight carrier Glen Lamb agrees, saying he's spent "thousands" on headlamps and windscreen repairs.

"There is also the damage to freight, and even livestock in terms of bruising on the way to the abattoir at Casino," he said.

"The road is not built for the trucks of today.

"It's actually safer to drive it at night, because you can see the headlights coming towards you.

"But the issue is that it's still the shortest and most direct route over the border, so we really don't have a choice."

Koreelah resident Pat Hurley has lived in the region for 64 years and feared for the safety of her five children when they travelled the road 50 years ago to go to high school at Woodenbong.

"They come to visit me these days and they say it's no different to when they were on the school bus," Pat said.

"I try and avoid it as much as I can but I had to take a truck to Woodenbong to get registered a couple of weeks back - sometimes you just have to travel it."

Legume Store owner Bob Elmer said tourists frequently told him of their shock at the state of the road.

"They come up from Brisbane or south of the border and they've never come through here before - and they say 'never again'," he said.

"They'll go the coastal route instead, so it's all business lost to this area."

Rod Edwards, who travels to his local property from his home of Beaudesert every week agrees, saying non-locals took their life in their hands.

"A lot of motorbikes have come off that road and with no mobile reception a lot of the accidents don't get reported," he said.

"We really don't have a true picture of the accident history.

"I run a smash repair business at Beaudesert and I've been driving tow trucks for 20 years and I have never seen a road like it - someone is going to be killed."

At the Killarney end, Maurice Thompson's son David runs the local vet clinic with branch at Urbenville over the border and says the wear and tear factor on vehicles is massive.

"It's simple economics isn't; it - you travel it fix or six times a week for callouts and it's adding 25 per cent to your business costs a year from the damage you do to vehicles and tyre-wear," he said.

"It's an hour trip from Legume to Woodenbong but it should really only be half an hour.

"You do 60 all the way and you're lucky if you get into fourth gear."

He said the economic importance of the Mt Lindesay Rd elevated it above the need for a second range crossing for Toowoomba.

At the Woodenbong end it is the same story, but with a few extra twists to the tale.

Real estate agent Vanessa Wernowski of Mt Lindesay Realty has done more than her fair share of hair-tearing, having seen sales leads fall over like houses of cards thanks to the Mt Lindesay Rd.

"We have people from across the Darling Downs looking for property in this area - investment, residential and farming - but many of them go for one drive along the road and they say no way," she said.

"I have had plenty of enquiry, probably 30 per cent of it is from the Downs, and others from out St George and Roma way, and on a number of occasions I've been close to getting a contract signed, but the road has been the factor that has put people off.

"It is hurting business in general in this area and it is very, very frustrating to have to deal with."

Long-time local Malcolm Reid believes the state of the road has contributed to a decline in Woodenbong's fortunes and that the once-thriving town is missing out on the tourism benefits in particular, given the lesser importance today of industries such as dairying and timber.

Other locals are equally angry at the missed commercial opportunities from the grey nomad set and even equestrian enthusiasts who travel between Legume and Woodenbong once and swear "never again".

Some of them, grown cynical after years of inaction, believe only a coal seam gas boom in the Downs and Northern Rivers will fix the road.

Kyogle Shire Councillor Lindsay Passfield can reel off the history of the road back to the days of maverick NSW premier Jack Lang who borrowed from the UK for the original highway and refused to pay the Poms their money back because he contended the interest rate was too high.

"In 1982 it was decided to downgrade the status of the road from a highway and Tenterfield Shire agreed on the basis that the NSW state government would take half of the financial responsibility for it," he said.

"It was probably one of the best roads in Australia until the 1950s.

"The problem is that the majority of the road is in the Tenterfield Shire but there are very few ratepayers at this (the Woodenbong) end, even though there are 13 local authorities from both sides of the border which have a stake in this road."

In the coming weeks we will feature more stories from local about the Mt Lindesay - but in the meantime visit "Fix the Woodenbong to Legume, Mt Lindesay Rd" site on Facebook and sign the online petition.

Nightmare on Mt Lindesay

• Potholes, uneven surfaces, patched areas re-opened
• Post-war era standard, not designed for modern freight
• Narrow and not wide enough for trucks and cars to pass or overtake
• Rough gravel verges and loose material across road after rain, also fallen trees
• Blind corners making it impossible to see oncoming traffic
• Steep embankments and deep gullies

Frequent flyers

• Trucks include cattle and pigs heading for abattoirs at Casino and Booyong from Warwick and across Darling Downs; also cattle being taken to pasture from NSW to Queenland and to regional saleyards
• Big W freight - Wickham Freightlines Warwick supplying northern NSW
• Logging trucks out of Koreelah State Forest
• Grain and feed trucks from Killarney, Kyogle
• Other frequent users include school buses, equestrian competitors, tourists and grey nomads with caravans

What would it cost?

• It is estimated that a basic upgrade of the existing alignment - with the current curves - to 19m B-Double standard would cost around $17m
• A better long-term solution would be re-aligning the road completely and upgrading to 25m B-Double standard, at a cost of around $120m - but this would be paid for in 30 years from resultant savings in vehicle damage and operating costs and accidents, and an estimated $100m in tourism dividends over the same period.