‘It’s heartbreaking’: Rockhampton woman tells of trauma as Queensland reaches 200 road deaths

“I lost a part of me”: Three people close to Rockhampton woman Raina Collett have been involved in accidents on Queensland roads. To raise awareness of road safety, she recounted the lasting effects of seeing family and friends traumatised by car crashes.

A day after a 21-year-old The Range man died in a crash on the Bruce Highway at Midgee, and as Queensland reaches 200 road deaths for the year so far, road safety advocates and Central Queensland politicians got together in Rockhampton to promote road safety awareness and emphasise the importance of road education for young drivers.

Rockhampton woman Raina Collett, aged 20, spoke at the occasion about three people close to her involved in accidents on Queensland roads.

When she was six years old, Ms Collett’s father was killed on his motorbike outside of Calliope when he hit a kangaroo.

“My mother at the time had a one-year-old and myself to look after on top of dealing with the grief of the accident,” she said.

“My sister and myself have had to grow up without a father, and my mother without her husband.

“I was very close to my dad and I truly felt like I lost a part of me when I lost him, and I can never get that back.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time where I haven’t sat and thought, ‘God I wish he was here.’ I miss him dearly.”

At 17, Ms Collett’s best friend Olivia Harwood and that friend’s mother, Beverley Harwood, died in a crash on the Warrego Highway on October 2, 2018 because of, as Ms Collett said, a truck driver’s inattention.

She visits Olivia’s memorial every year.

Raina Collett speaks about road safety in Rockhampton.

“Let me tell you, it doesn’t compare to seeing her smiling face,” Ms Collett said.

“Olivia and I started our schooling journey together in Prep in 2007, and before the accident we were getting ready to graduate together.

“She had her future set out and we were so excited to finally graduate.

“These were two people with unbelievable potential for the future.”

When she was 19, one of Ms Collett’s family members was in a fatal car rollover in Yeppoon.

Her friend survived because she was wearing a seatbelt, but not everybody in the car was so lucky.

“I’ve seen first hand the mental distress she’s been forced to deal with as a result of the incident and how that completely changed her as a person,” Ms Collett said.

“It's heartbreaking. You can see the fear in her and she’ll carry that for the rest of her life, as do I.”

Throughout September, the Australian Road Safety Foundation has been campaigning for regional registrations of the free RoadSet program in order to tackle the statistic that road trauma is the biggest killer of Australian children aged between one and 14 years, and the second biggest killer of young people aged 15 to 24.

Ms Collett signs the ASRF’s inflatable pledge car.

ASRF CEO Russell White said two in three road deaths occurred in rural areas.

“A rural area obviously has higher travel speeds,” he said. “We’ve also got not always the most accommodating roadside infrastructure because of trees and other things that are around that would arrest a car very quickly if a person does make a mistake.

“And then we also have issues like fatigue, like drink-driving, like drug-driving: things we see in metro, but are amplified in a rural area.

“It’s those sorts of behaviours, the familiarity of roads with local residents, but also people from metro areas who aren’t, for want of a better word, match-fit to be driving in rural areas because they’ve been conditioned to a suburban areas.

“I think the other factor too is that help can be a very long way away. So if a person does leave the road or something does happen, it can take time for emergency services to even find them, let alone start to provide any sort of aid or response.”

Mr White said Queensland’s 2021 road toll was “very concerning” and that “it is a troubling trend to see road trauma increasing”.

Queensland Police on Thursday said the state was on track to surpass 300 lives lost by Christmas.

“It’s about choosing not to be distracted, to choose to stick to the roads rules, to choose to not drive fatigued, and it’s about making those choices and ultimately that comes back to personal responsibility,” Mr White said.

Senator Matt Canavan signs the inflatable pledge car for Rural Road Safety Month.

Queensland Senator Matt Canavan said everybody had the “responsibility to promote and educate others about the importance of road safety”.

“We lose too many Australians every year from road deaths, and we lose far too many in regional Australia from road deaths,” he said.

“It is not a happy statistic for regional Australia that two-thirds of fatalities occur here, but only one third of Australians live in regional Australia. That’s not the way it should go.

“If you’ve got a young son like me – I’m getting him through his 100 hours for his licence – make sure you do talk to them about the importance of road safety, download this RoadSet app, and have a conversation with your children about how you love them and you want them to return home safe after every trip away.”

Mr Canavan, Member for Capricornia Michelle Landry, Member for Callide Colin Boyce, and Member for Flynn Ken O’Dowd signed the ASRF’s road safety pledge.

Originally published as ‘It’s heartbreaking’: Rockhampton woman tells of trauma as Queensland reaches 200 road deaths