The Mt Barker community is being invited to participate in an “eye-opening” session about driver safety, presented by a firefighter and a road crash survivor.
SA MFS station officer Doug MacDonald-Taylor, who has seen the devastation car crashes can cause first-hand, and guest speaker Eli Murn will deliver a presentation of their Road Awareness Program (RAP) at St Francis de Sales College next month.
The event, organised by the Eastern Hills Basketball Association (EHBA), is open for all to attend and will include first-hand accounts of car crashes along with road safety tips.
Mr MacDonald-Taylor said the first incident he attended as a firefighter was a car crash.
“I was pretty naive, I knew that road crash was part of what we did, but I didn’t realise 40% of our major jobs are rescues and car crashes,” he said. “My first ever job was cutting a young fella out of the back of a car … it took about an hour to cut him out.
“In my first few years I couldn’t believe how many (crashes) we saw.”
Mr Murn’s hopes to be an Olympic volleyballer were cut short when he crashed his car into a tree in 2004 while “showing off” to his girlfriend.
Since then he has strived to prevent young people from making the same mistakes he did through the RAP, which he has been involved in for 20 years.
Also an ex-basketballer, Mr Murn is now coaching Under 16 and Under 18 boys teams as part of the EHBA.
“I think that the kids can easily see through my stories that I was just like them … so they need to take on board the program’s messages,” he said.
Mr MacDonald-Taylor said the key slogans for the RAP were “you get to choose the risk, you don’t get to choose the consequences” and “looking after our mates”.
“We don’t just talk about what you can do to make yourself a better road user, we talk about what you can do to help your loved ones, your friends and your family to be better road users,” he said.
“One of the main crash causes is distractions and mobile phones are probably the number one distraction … so we want people to understand that a small risk can have life-altering consequences.”
EHBA member Emily Power said all of the clubs that make up the association were on board with the event.
“It’s going to be a community event ... we definitely want everybody to come along, the more we can get the better,” she said.
To register for the free event on August 10, which is aimed at ages 14 and over, visit tinyurl.com/RAPMFS.
