Minor bump sends major message
MY first day as a bona fide Victorian by all but birth was a memorable one, but for all the wrong reasons.
The last official piece of paper — or plastic — I ticked off the list to cement my link (other than through my grandmother, who grew up in Yackandandah) was switching my Queensland driver’s licence to that of the place I now call home.
I figured there was not much better way to mark the occasion than a bit of a local road trip to check out Ballarat, somewhere I had never seen.
Neither had my fiancee, nor my mum, who had just arrived in town to visit my new digs.
We had a reasonable day enjoying lunch, a drive around the rose-laden suburbs and myriad roundabouts, and a visit to the botanical gardens before it was time to call it a day.
We were waiting at the final roundabout we had to clear before … BOOM. The unthinkable happened. My first day on a Victorian licence, and wouldn’t you know it: a Toyota bullbar has banged into the Subaru badge on the boot of my Impreza.
First and most importantly, no one was physically hurt — although the blood pressure of everyone was certainly elevated. Secondly, both parties were insured, although neither knew exactly what details we needed to exchange (it’s something we should probably all refresh ourselves with, although hopefully not in my situation). After all the formalities and a chat with my insurer, my brain told me I should forget about it and relax. But of course you can’t help going through not only what happened but Of course, it comes down to distraction. The authorities tell us it is increasingly the cause of road accidents. You could surmise any number of things — a glance at a mobile phone, how. uncertainty over where to go, seeing an open ‘spot’ one thinks is there the other does not … even quite simply being off in fairyland.
Whatever happened in my case will eventually be a minor blip while I drive around in a car with a ding, and a bit of an inconvenience in my life when it gets repaired, and eventually I may well forget about it.
But for every minor inconvenience that occurs, now and then a distracted moment becomes a disaster.
A nose-to-tail is miles away from a fatal accident but it’s in the same breath — many of them come from the same root cause. But seeing those smaller incidents and being reminded of the importance of being attentive at the wheel might just be a saviour for someone else down the track.