YOU ALMOST KILLED MY KIDS

Dad’s heartfelt letter after horror smash involving alleged drink driver

A GOLD COAST father has described the horrifying moment his family were almost hit by an out-of-control car with an alleged drunk driver behind the wheel.

“(He) came within centimetres of ending the lives of my pregnant wife and two young sons, myself, and four other adult friends of ours,” Dr Sam Dowthwaite wrote in a letter to the Bulletin.

“... We almost had our lives taken from us by another human who had so little regard for his actions that he didn’t even have the sense to conceal his open bottle of alcohol.”

LAST Saturday night an accident occurred in Fingal Head that was reported in the Gold Coast Bulletin.

My sincere thanks to the journalist and paper for publishing the article.

The incident reads benignly enough but the reality was anything but.

The drunk driver who lost control of his speeding car came within centimetres of ending the lives of my pregnant wife and two young sons, myself, and four other adult friends of ours as we were leaving a Christmas party. As we stood changing my twoyear-old son’s nappy in the back of our car, he careered out of control into the car parked behind us.

It was only my wife’s quick actions that saved the boy’s life while the rest of us were left to try to jump clear as his vehicle T-boned another car, flattened a phone box and came to rest in the garden of the Fingal general store.

Four of us were left with minor injuries, the worst of which left our young friend in hospital overnight.

The outcome of the accident thankfully reads well. Nobody killed and everyone is now home with their family and friends.

What is harder to overcome though is the mental scarring that this driver has caused.

Our two and four-year-old sons watching their parents and friends almost get killed. Our good friends seeing their youngest daughter lying bloodied and injured on the ground.

But most sobering was the violent realisation that these people exist in our society. Watching the driver stumble

The first five days of the Queensland Police Service’s Christmas Road Safety Campaign have seen Gold Coast police conduct 2036 breath tests.

So far 19 drink drivers and eight suspected drug drivers have been caught.

The highest breath test reading to date occurred at Coolangatta and was 0.175 per cent, almost four times the legal limit.

There have also been 77 drivers detected speeding, 22 mobile phone offences and six failure to wear seatbelt offences.

Alarmingly, there have been

172 infringement notices for “life-endangering offences” and

303 traffic infringement notices in total.

Gold Coast police have warned that officers will be actively patrolling and enforcing the road rules over the holiday period. out of his car with his alcoholic drink still in his hand was confronting.

Through no fault of our own we almost had our lives taken from us by another human who had so little regard for his actions that he didn’t even have the sense to conceal his open bottle of alcohol.

I’m still not entirely sure what I’m trying to achieve in writing this letter. Maybe it’s just a helpful catharsis.

Or maybe it’s trying to hold this driver to a greater public account for the impact his actions have had. But mostly I think I’m just frustrated. We should be able to expect better of our fellow citizens.

This ridiculous behaviour can potentially end their own lives, or worse still, the lives of innocent people around them.

Without wishing to preempt the outcome of the driver’s court appearance in February next year, any sentence dealt will likely not adequately reflect the near-fatal consequences of his drunken crash last Saturday night.

While I can appreciate and accept the wheels of justice will be driven by actual outcomes rather than “what ifs”, it doesn’t make the devastating thought of those potential aftermaths any easier to process. The reality is he (and our family) just got lucky. His acts were idiotic, selfish, and dangerous.

It’s surreal to reflect on the accident now. I’m not so naive to believe that this won’t unfortunately happen again.

But hopefully this man will at least be served a punishment that will act as a deterrent to him, and hopefully a few others, never to repeat this again in the future.