It’s one community and there’s only one river in between but there’s two sets of rules, creating all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles for P-platers, taxi drivers and tradies, just to name a few.

Less than a week ago, The Border Mail told the story of a group of NSW teenagers and their parents thought they were doing the right thing when they looked up the road rules ahead of a journey through Victoria.

Instead, the information they found ended up landing the driver with a $500 fine from Victoria Police for travelling with too many peer passengers in his car.

We have raised the possibility of a national driver’s licencing scheme that might knock these kinds of anomalies on the head.

Until something is done, the costly confusion will continue for young drivers on both sides of the Murray River.

Victoria’s installation of a cross border commissioner follows NSW which first had someone in that role in 2012.

That’s why it’s welcome news indeed that ​Wodonga will be home to Victoria’s newly appointed cross border commissioner – Luke Wilson.

The Labor government’s basing of its commissioner in Wodonga contrasts with the Coalition Opposition, which has said if it is elected it would have a cross border chief housed in Mildura.

Wodonga Liberal MP Bill Tilley said earlier this year that having the commissioner based in Mildura made sense geographically given its proximity to NSW and South Australia. That may be true but, perhaps selfishly, we’re delighted that Mr Wilson will be based in Wodonga and can get a first-hand look at the issues Border and North East residents encounter every day.

Mr Wilson has identified anomalies experienced by Wodonga taxi drivers and school bus routes between the twin cities as quick fixes.

This might not be a quick fix – we all know Rome wasn’t built in a day – but we’d like to see the same rules applying to P-platers on both sides of the border added to that list.​