Monday, Sep 02, 2013 at 11:59
Notso - Yes, the ultimate penalty is the one you can't get out of, with the assistance of a lawyer.
The brother and SIL were travelling
home to the wheatbelt around 1967 or '68, through the Gleneagle
State Forest, late at night.
The roads were pretty quiet and just one car came up behind them in about 70 kms once out of
Perth.
The car overtook them and vanished into the distance.
About 15 mins later, as they neared the end of the forest and the start of the farmland at Dale River, they spotted a set of headlights in the bush, about 80M off the road.
They pulled up and saw the car that had passed them only 15 mins before, on its side. It had run off the road, rolled on its side and slid into a sizeable tree, that was directly in line with the windscreen.
They had a look inside and found that the driver (the sole occupant) was dead - killed instantly by a broken neck, when he was thrown forward and hit the tree.
This was just before seatbelts became mandatory. This bloke was only one of hundreds of people that would still be here today if seatbelts had been introduced earlier.
Interestingly, a number of Fords had seatbelts as standard from the early 1960's but few people used them.
I also lost a top
young employee in 1992 when he didn't wear his seatbelt.
Young John was 20 and a real go-getter - and on the day, he was instructed to take one of our dual cab 4x4 Hiluxes from our yard in Kalgoorlie out to the Celebration minesite about 35kms out on the Kambalda Road.
He roared off and about 2 hrs later we got notification there had been an accident involving one of our vehicles.
We got to the accident site and found our Hilux rolled and written off and
young John was dead.
It appeared that
John, despite being trained and advised to wear a seatbelt at all times, had failed to fasten his seatbelt.
The events involving the accident were incredible. It appeared that
John had drifted off the edge of the bitumen (wide, 2-lane highway, perfect conditions), either through inattention - perhaps he'd been consuming a snack - or he'd dropped something and tried to pick it up.
He hit a small wooden white guide post (75x35mm), with the LHS front wheel, that was flattened - and which broke in half as it was run over by the front wheel.
As the top half of the broken guide post came out from under the front wheel, it stood up at 45 degrees to the ground, and made contact with the LHS rear tyre at 90 degrees to the tread.
The post totally penetrated the tread, and effectively cut the tread belt in half. The tyre deflated instantly (this was a Bridgestone, too, I might add).
As
John swung the steering wheel to the right to get back on the bitumen, he was unaware the LHS rear tyre was totally deflated.
The Hilux promptly broadsided at 110 kmh with the totally deflated LHS rear tyre acting as a skid. The Hilux rolled twice and
John was catapulted out the passenger side window and hit the road head first, breaking his neck instantly.
This was a very sad day for all concerned - not only because
John was a decent,
well behaved, and top class employee - but because it was all due to a few moments carelessness, as regards fastening a
seat belt.
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