Changing a gearbox left Peter Boland and his disabled son navigating a legal nightmare

Peter Boland is the sole carer for his quadriplegic, brain-injured son “PJ”. An obscure glitch in a gearbox upgrade has left the veteran truck driver, who has never lost his license, navigating a legal nightmare.

Peter Boland with his son PJ at home. Picture: Ian Currie

When Peter Boland’s quadriplegic, brain-injured son “PJ” was home and briefly alone one morning in 2010, two intruders broke into the family’s Hampton Park house and terrorised him, tipping over his wheelchair as they ransacked the place.

It was a horrifying experience that left PJ, then 23, frightened of strangers and relying even more on his father, who has been his main carer and support almost all his life.

When one of the home invaders was eventually arrested, says Boland Sr, the offender didn’t serve a day in jail.

He is now worried sick that the courts that let them down then will do the same again in a different way.

This time, it isn’t burglars getting away with a despicable act.

Peter Boland is PJ’s primary carer. Picture: Ian Currie

Boland fears that he himself is a soft target for the full force of laws not always applied equally.

Whereas magistrates are increasingly wary and police very weary of machete-wielding home invaders and car thieves who routinely get bail, ordinary everyday drivers can be easy meat for revenue-raising fines.

At least, that’s what is keeping Boland awake at night.

The veteran subcontract truck driver is at the mercy of the spin-off effects of an obscure mechanical glitch that has imposed another burden on a life of grief and hard grind.

At 66, Boland still works to support his profoundly-disabled son, a story of heartbreak and bravery.

Boland has been driving for 48 years without loss of licence.

He has covered three million kilometres driving trucks without an accident.

He drives the same well-maintained nine-tonne flatbed truck he bought 25 years ago.

He delivers timber for a Dandenong business whose kindly owners roster him on short trips close to base so he is never too far from his son at home.

PJ had an operation for a brain aneurysm aged 5. Picture: Supplied

Peter is the sole carer for his son PJ (short for Peter James), who was struck down with a catastrophic brain bleed after his first day of school in 1993.

The little boy almost died and was left brain-injured, a nightmare that devastated the family, leaving his father without the time, money or energy to cope with anything beyond working and caring for his son, now 38.

A difficult life got worse in May 2022, when the transmission in Boland’s truck broke down.

Needing urgent repairs to keep his delivery work going, he took it to his usual mechanic, who fitted a replacement gearbox on a weekend so it didn’t interrupt weekday deliveries.

Over the next 11 months, the habitually careful driver was mystified to get a series of speeding fines and to lose all 12 of his demerit points.

He finally asked his mechanic if there could be a mechanical fault.

The mechanic did a basic test that showed the speedometer was at least 10km/h slow: when it showed 60km/h, the true speed was around 70km/h.

Boland went to the crippling expense of getting an accredited engineer and expert witness to test the vehicle for court-standard evidence.

Losing his licence would be devastating for Peter and PJ. Picture: Ian Currie.

This cost half the $8000 he had saved to cover funeral expenses for his son and himself.

The engineer found that the replacement gearbox had a slightly different gearing ratio, designed for smaller wheels than the ones on his truck.

This made it go further, and therefore faster, with every revolution.

The measured discrepancy was around 18 per cent, meaning that if the “speedo” showed 100km/h, actual speed was 118km/h.

This explained why traffic cameras had started pinging him well above the limit — the most recent (and crucial) infringement being in Dandenong South last year.

The case that could cost Peter Boland his licence, and his livelihood, has been adjourned twice in a magistrates court for good reasons.

He has been taking his son for vital treatment of a brain cyst at the Peter MacCallum cancer hospital.

The first prosecutor on the case grasped the facts but another one who has taken it over seems uninterested in anything but an aggressive prosecution, despite the accredited engineer’s report on the gearbox glitch.

The result is that on June 24, Peter Boland is facing court and an uncertain future.

There is every chance, of course, that a magistrate will see the facts for what they are and the defendant for what he is — an honest, humble and stoic man buffeted by forces beyond his control.

Originally published as Changing a gearbox left Peter Boland and his disabled son navigating a legal nightmare