No tickets on Italo
‘Safest driver’ reveals his top tips
A KIRWAN pensioner might just be Australia’s safest driver, after 69 years behind the wheel and never receiving an infringement notice.
Italo Toscano, 86, renewed his licence in March and said he was proud of his clean slate, which also included never receiving a parking fine.
“I have never had a parking ticket or an infringement notice for speeding, had a cleanskin right through,” Mr Toscano said.
“We did have one accident where somebody ran into us but it was not our fault, we weren’t charged and they came out of a side road.
“I have driven in every state of Australia apart from WA and I drove trucks for a short period and I did get a couple of cautions but that was years ago.”
When he first started driving, cars did not have airconditioning.
“Without airconditioning you sometimes used to drive with your elbow out of the window and I got a caution for that,” he said.
“But apart from that, absolutely nothing.”
He puts his good driving record down to always driving to the conditions of the road and not getting agitated or distracted from the road ahead.
“It proves, with the amount of accidents there are, that to drive without having an accident you have just got to be a little bit careful,” he said.
“The trouble today is that drivers won’t drive to the conditions of the roads.
“If the roads are a little bit wet, slow down.
“Also the mobile phones. I think that has a lot to do with it, by distracting drivers.”
Born in Ingham, Mr Toscano received his licence in 1953 at the age of 17 at the Halifax Police Station, 16km from the cane farming town and said he did not have to do much to get his licence.
“The police officer stood on the veranda and told me, ‘drive down to the corner, make a Uturn, come back, park here, back in and park in again’,” Mr Toscano recalled. “Then after I did that he said, ‘OK, come in, I will give you a licence’.
“That was all I had to do, no written test or anything.”
Mr Toscano started working at the Macknade sugar mill at 14 until he retired 14 years ago and always wanted to drive the cane trains.
Mr Toscano has fond memories of his first car, an FE Holden with a manual transmission, with a three column shift on the steering wheel. He had that car – a dark blue over light blue model – for seven years.
“The FE was a brand-new car, it was my first car and I polished it and polished it,” he said. “I paid 1300 pounds for it in 1957 and it was a little bit different in those days as you had to come up with half the money yourself.
“I had the FE Holden then an EH Holden, then I had a Valiant, then a Mazda 626.
“But it was all Holdens from then on, I was not happy with that Valiant as it was a fuel guzzler.”
Currently he has a Commodore and has had the same number plate for the past four cars.
His advice for young drivers was simple. “The only thing I can say to the young people (is) drive to the conditions of the road and keep the phone out of sight.”