‘Huge wake-up call’: Neighbours star Andrew Morley relives hair-raising accidents

These were the rolls that Neighbours star Andrew Morley didn’t want.

Driving lesson: Neighbours actor Andrew Morley uses his experiences to educate teenagers about what can go wrong behind the wheel.

Neighbours star Andrew Morley knows the dangers of driving better than most. As a teenager he found himself in three rollovers, luckily escaping serious injury.

The first time he fell asleep at the wheel, the second a mate rolled his Commodore on a dirt road and the third came courtesy of an off-road instructor who couldn’t tell right from left.

The young actor says the experiences — along with a stint as a volunteer firefighter arriving first on the scene at highway accidents — have shaped his approach to driving.

Off-road enthusiast: Neighbours star Andrew Morley and his Toyota FJ Cruiser.

He now spends some of his time talking to 16 to 18-year-old students about how quickly things can go wrong behind the wheel.

The first accident was only a couple of months after he turned 18.

“One day I was out of fuel and I needed to get to work so I took dad’s Volvo and I ended up falling asleep behind the wheel at 10 o’clock on a Sunday going to work. I rolled it in the middle of the Calder Freeway towards Kyneton. It was a huge wake-up call for me,” he says.

To rub salt into the wounds, his brother was working for the fire brigade and was one of the first on the scene. “It was a bit of, ‘You’re an idiot’ and ‘Are you OK?’ ” he says.

First rollover: Dad’s Volvo.

He emerged unscathed from the 100km/h accident, largely due to the fact he took the Volvo instead of his beaten-up 1990s Toyota HiLux.

“Dad was a doctor and he was swayed by the technology and safety features of the Volvo. It was a bit of a proud moment for him because he’d picked such a safe car,” Morley says.

There was another silver lining — the car was insured for $12,000 but they had been offered only $3000 as a trade-in.

Unfortunately his hip pocket didn’t emerge unscathed from his second accident. A friend wanted to buy his Commodore and asked to take it for a test drive. He took it down a dirt road with Morley in the passenger seat and promptly lost control, flipping the car and writing it off.

Both escaped serious injury but the “friend” quickly backed out of the sale and refused to pay for the damage.

The next time he flipped was when his off-road instructor gave him a bum steer on a rocky off-road track, telling him to keep turning left when he meant right and tipping the HiLux on its side.

Love job: Morley’s Purvis Eureka.

Despite a horror start to his motoring experience, Morley is a car enthusiast. He owns a lovingly restored 1974 Toyota FJ40 with a Ford V8, a Windsor 289, and is dropping a new engine into a Purvis Eureka, a fibreglass Australian kit car built on a Volkswagen chassis.

An off-road enthusiast, he also has a modern Toyota FJ Cruiser, although fatherhood may mean a rationalisation of the garage, as he recently bought a Kia Sorento.

Off-roader: Morley’s 1974 Toyota FJ40.

“At the moment I think I’ve got five regos that I’m paying for, as well as motorbikes,”
he says.

He admits the collectables may be the first to go. “Eventually I’ll need to pass them on to some other collector,” he says.