My first car accident occurred in 1976. A young teacher, I was driving home from Hampton High School in Western Australia in our first car, a Fiat 850 sports car, which we had bought just before we married in January 1973. When we exchanged our nuptials, Steve was 21 and had just completed his engineering degree at the University of Western Australia WA. I was still six months short of 20 and was two years into my Arts degree.
The Fiat was our pride and joy, and in keeping with the fashion, we had the white duco repainted bright yellow. We felt very sophisticated; very cool when we drove our little sports car to Denmark on the south coast of WA for our honeymoon. We also felt very adventurous in February 1974 when we packed all our clothes into it and drove across the Nullarbor to Sydney where Steve took up a scholarship to complete a one-year master’s program at the University of NSW.
For West Australians, the trip across the Nullarbor to the Eastern States was legendary. I recall as a small child, ‘slide’ evenings in which friends far wealthier than us proudly showed images of them standing in the red dust on the side of the highway next to their Holden, with tarpaulin covered luggage sitting on the roof, and the vehicle covered in a thick layer of the gritty red stuff. ‘This is us having a morning cuppa somewhere between Balladonia and Caiguna. The pot holes were amazing’.
Originally ‘built’ in 1941, the Eyre Highway was the only road connection between Western Australia and the Eastern States. A deeply rutted gravel and red sand track, it was only sealed in sections during the 1960s and 70s. When we made the journey in 1974, about 200 kms were still unsealed.
The Fiat was the quintessential city car: tiny, close to the ground and definitely not designed to float over the deep corrugations. On the contrary, a long-standing joke between Steve and me is that I enjoyed the vibrations. Fortunately, our adventure was just about incident free. The exception occurred at a camp site in Eucla where we were assailed by the thundering sound and vibrations of two or three motor bikes that circled our two-person tent a few times as we lay in it. Probably just a lark intended to frighten us a bit, which it certainly did, but we survived without any material damage.
On that day home from Hampton High School in 1976, I was turning right onto a busy road and failed to give way to a car that was driving towards me. Neither the other driver nor I was injured, but his car was damaged, and ours was a write-off. That was the end of our beautiful little car, which we replaced with a Hillman – one of the more modern minx models, probably from the early 1960s, which we gave to my young brother some months later when we departed for a year of backpacking overseas.
I was very embarrassed by this accident, because I do not consider myself a reckless driver. I was once stopped by a policeman who pointed out that I was driving too slowly. Judgement or inattention has probably been my problem, and so I have responded to this by giving myself plenty of time to enter traffic.
It would be fair to say that I am a three-state offender. In 1984, our Mazda traveller van – a nine-seater – was sideswiped by another car as I attempted to veer from the right to the left lane on a busy roundabout in Hobart. The driver of the other car was an off-duty policeman, and while neither of us was injured, both our cars were very slightly damaged. Apart from the opprobrium with which he took the opportunity to let me know that I was in the wrong, I also endured the embarrassment of Steve’s colleague Burt witnessing the accident from his desk in the Department of Transport office which overlooked the roundabout. For many years later, we all laughed at the fact that it was impossible to get away with doing something wrong in Hobart. However, before I had had a chance to ring Steve – these were pre-mobile phone days – I contemplated the wisdom of having not shared with the policeman the fact that the occasion was accompanied by two possible mitigating factors. The first was that having only recently weaned our third child, this was the first day of my first period in five years. The second was that I was – quite uncharacteristically – listening to ABC FM classic and immensely enjoying Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Not ever since this experience have I listened to music on the radio while driving; I am too fearful that doing so will be an unsafe distraction.
Fast forward to Wollongong in 1996. I attempted to turn right out of a busy T junction and failed to see a car approaching from the right. Hers, a brand new mid-blue sedan, the make of which I cannot remember was slightly damaged. Mine, a black Citroen Xantia, and perhaps a couple of years old was, perhaps appropriately, was so damaged that it was un driveable. Having exchanged contact details, I sat on the curb to wait for the tow truck to take my car to the panel beaters.
This was an extremely busy time of my life, in which managing three kids and a business had me driving long distances every week, and probably far too often trying to avoid running late. The accident earned me the final three of my twelve demerit points, and thus resulted in me making a trip to court and losing my licence for three months.
I don’t remember my defence, but I clearly remember the magistrate’s swift and merciless dismissal of it, when he said that any defence would be worthless if I killed myself or others on the road. While I couldn’t argue with his rebuke, I later wondered whether his impatience was a result of the fact that his son was the sole survivor of a recent head-on collision that had killed his mates, and all the occupants of the other car. The accident occurred late at night on a quiet, narrow road. The vehicle in which the magistrate’s son was a passenger was travelling at high speed: apparently the young guys were engaging in a bit of a youthful, but reckless lark.
Fortunately, apart from my guilt and my wounded pride about yet another failure of judgement, my accident was injury free. But, the incident will always have a special place in my memory. As I sat on the curb with my head in my hands and feeling like an idiot, I suddenly heard my eldest daughter calling me. Dressed in over-the-knees, blue, red and white pleated check uniform, black leather shoes and white socks and an untidy mess of gorgeous honey blonde hair, Dom swooped down and threw her arms around me. ‘Yes, I’m ok’, I said, as I sank into her comforting embrace. Seventeen and in year 11, Dom was among a group of kids being given a lift by another mum on their way back to school after an excursion to the conservatorium when she noticed me and my mangled car.
As a teenager Dom was romantically optimistic, feisty and probably even a bit reckless at times. But, this was the first of two occasions on which she gave me a taste of the compassion and selflessness that I have loved about her ever since: the second was a year later just a few days before her HSC, when she drove me to hospital in the middle of the night. Apparently, on average, we can anticipate having 3-4 accidents in a lifetime of driving. That is according to an American calculation and I don’t imagine that the figure will be much different in Australia. So, lets hope that I stay at this point on the bell curve for the rest of my life.
June 2019
Meandering Thoughts 