SA Police superintendent Darren Fielke tells of his own cousin dying in a car crash

SAPOL Superintendent Darren Fielke remembers being a kid at school in the Riverland when his cousin died in a car crash.

Superintendent Darren Fielke remembers being a kid at school in the Riverland when his cousin died in a car crash on the dirt back roads near Taldra.

“Bruce had just returned to Loxton after a period in the navy … I still think about it now,” the officer in charge of South Australia’s Traffic Services Branch says.

Supt Fielke tells how the dreadful impact of that crash has stayed with him and how the impact of all crashes on South Australian roads stay forever with families, friends, communities and those attending the scene.

Despite an “optimism bias” where drivers think crashes “won’t happen to them”, he says the facts show “it happens to absolutely everybody”.

Among the ranks are Police Commissioner Grant Stevens whose son Charlie died after a crash in Goolwa last year.

A former SA police assistant commissioner and Northern Territory police commissioner Paul White was killed while cycling last year and in 2020, Detective Chief Superintendent Joanne Shanahan died after a shocking car crash in Urrbrae.

Since the beginning of this year, 73 people have died on SA roads compared to 94 last year, and there were 698 serious injuries compared to 734 last year.

Traffic Services Branch officer-in-charge Superintendent Darren Fielke. Picture Dean Martin

In all, the state has recorded almost 3500 crashes where somebody ended up in hospital.

Those numbers are behind the current Operation Safe Hills where more police cars and speed cameras are addressing the recorded high number of cars, motorcyclists and cyclists attracted to the Adelaide Hills in warmer weather.

But Supt Fielke does worry about numbers “dehumanising” the impact of crashes.

“Rightly or wrongly we always focus on the number but it’s not about the number it’s about the number actually being a person,” Supt Fielke says.

“It’s a member of someone’s family, it’s a loved one, a husband, wife, grandmother, grandfather, son, daughter.”

He is also aware of members of the public or police arriving at a crash scene and having to face their own personal trauma.

The scene can be chaotic and with some 70 per cent of incidents happening in the country regions the officers may know those involved.

Traffic Services Branch officer-in-charge Superintendent Darren Fielke. Picture Dean Martin

SA Police major crash investigations’ Sgt Lauren Kearns. Picture: Supplied

“For a member of the public, you think about a crash that might be remote and it might take a long time for anyone to find the crash site or it’s in a country community where the person who is finding the crash has played footy or netball with the person in the crash,” he says.

“Or they catch up with her on the weekend or they know the brother, sister, mother, or father of the person in the crash.

“Then you flip that into what it looks like for the country copper who also might play footy or netball with that person or know that person’s family which is where it gets more difficult for regional police who come across these crashes.”

Major Crash Investigations Sergeant Lauren Kearns agrees that it can be a challenge for her team that attends all fatal crashes or where there are serious injuries.

“(They are always professional) but I think internally there’s a frustration because you know someone’s life has been completely upturned when it could have been avoided,” she says.