Road safety for kids: Mum’s sad warning after losing 4yo son

Michelle McLaughlin will never forget the split-second she lost her four-year-old son, and she says it’s a national crisis that’s largely gone ignored.

A 40-plus degree day, cicadas blaring and the first day of a beachside family holiday at Macmasters Beach on NSW’s Central Coast. Michelle McLaughlin remembers the day her son died in a car accident with brutal clarity.

Moments before, her family was about to walk to the beach. Her son, Tom, was outside their rental with his grandparents, playing with a small surfboard he’d received for Christmas. Her husband, David, and their seven-year-old daughter Sophie were walking up to the front of the home, while she was getting her youngest, baby Hugh, ready for the beach.

In what she describes as “a microsecond”, Tom stepped onto the road from the grassy birch and collided with a four-wheel drive coming down the street at 53km/hour.

He died instantly.

“There wasn’t a demarcation between the curb and gutter and Tom very easily glided from the grassy birch and went onto the road,” she said, speaking to news.com.au.

“I became aware of it when I heard Sophie and David screaming and tearing down the driveway to get me. My initial thought was that something had happened to my in-laws.

“I didn’t expect it to be what it was.”

In just a microsecond, Tom’s death changed Ms McLaughlin’s family forever. Picture: Supplied

In light of the upcoming family summer holidays and increased traffic in holiday destinations, Ms McLaughlin warned road safety would be particularly important this year.

She said Covid-19, homeschooling and stay-at-home orders may have prevented children from being able to practice road safety, increasing the risks of potential accidents from occuring.

“Many children have had reduced exposure to roads and traffic during the extended Covid lockdown,” she said.

The Little Blue Dinosaur

The first year after Tom’s death, was particularly difficult, remembers Ms McLaughlin.

While her strategy was to put her two children first, inside, the Sydney-based nurse remembers feeling “paralysed”.

“You save your tears and distress for the night time,” she said.

Tom was just four years old when he died. Picture: Supplied

During that year, Ms McLaughlin channelled her grief into what would become The Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation – a children’s roadside safety advocacy group which would continue the legacy of her son, named after his favourite toy.

In seven years, the foundation has worked with local councils to create roadside safety and educational programs for schoolchildren and raise signs around popular holiday areas which remind parents to hold their children’s hands and for drivers to slow down.

This year, they’re launching Road Trauma Grief Support Packages for families who’ve lost children to road trauma. The initiative means families will receive 12-month long care packages which contain vouchers for child care, cleaning, domestic, and cooking services to help support bereaved parents.

The Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation has worked with schools, councils and other organisations to create signage to make drivers and parents more aware of children on roads. Photo: Supplied/ Matthias Engesser/ Narrative Post.

Ms McLaughlin hopes it’ll relieve the “absolute haze” the mourning process can bring. For her, she remembers the daunting and overwhelming feeling even small tasks like turning on the kettle, or eating lunch, would bring.

“But the cleaning, the domestics, the cooking and the homework doesn’t stop because you’ve had a tragedy. You’ve somehow got to work your way around it,” she said.

“It was hard getting out of bed. I’d put Hugh to bed in his cot and I’d just sit down and cry. I just couldn’t believe what had happened to our family.”

‘An unnoticed national crisis’

Using data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, she said 429 other children have had their lives taken in roadside accidents since Tom died. She said this number is indicative of an “unnoticed national crisis”.

“The most common cause of death in Australian children is road trauma and I’m sick and tired of reading it,” said Ms McLaughlin.

“If 430 children died in some impossible event, can you imagine the public outcry? Could you imagine what community leaders and MPs would be doing to be putting in policies and procedures to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

“But these numbers go unnoticed, they trickle in the door. We care because we’ve been through it with another 429 parents.”

Ms McLaughlin hopes families will remember her family’s tragedy during the holidays. Photo: Supplied/ Matthias Engesser/ Narrative Post.

Sharing her memories of Tom, Ms McLaughlin said the “terrible irony” was that Tom was a “very well-behaved and calm child”.

“He was just looking at the ground,” she added. “And as children are, they’re excited by recreational activities and he was in a new environment that looks different to what they know.”

“We had such an idyllic, perfect life. We were so happy and it was blown up in a microsecond moment.

“Our lives changed forever because of what happened to Tom.”

Although Ms McLaughlin knows she can’t change what has happened to her family, she hopes other parents will heed her warning.

“There’s nothing I can do to get my child back,” she said.

“We can’t change what happened to us but the story can change what happens to someone else, and prevention to me is very meaningful.”