Peter Thomson is part of the hidden road toll that haunts Wyndham. 69093 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
By XAVIER SMERDON
PETER Thomson knows all too well the risk Wyndham’s young drivers take when they get behind the wheel after drinking alcohol.
Fifteen years ago the Sunshine resident stopped to help someone who had been hit by a drunk driver who had fled the scene.
While he was helping the person that had been hit, a taxi driver that was not looking slammed into him at more than 60 kilometres an hour and left him pinned between two cars.
“I was in agony,” Mr Thomson said.
“The police said that the only reason I didn’t die was actually because I was trapped between the cars and I didn’t get thrown into the air.”
Mr Thomson spent the next three months in hospital where he had to learn how to walk again and has had more than 40 operations operations and skin grafts to try and repair his badly damaged legs.
His life has been a constant struggle now that he has become part of the “hidden road toll”.
“There are still things now that I struggle to do,” he said.
“It was touch and go for a while to see if I would keep my leg, and in hindsight, I wish I hadn’t.”
Mr Thomson now volunteers as a spokesperson for Road Trauma Support Services where he regularly speaks to young drivers in Wyndham who have been court ordered to attend his talks.
Star has joined forces with the Transport Accident Commission to launch the Shattered Lives campaign, which will encourage hoon drivers to think before they get in the driver’s seat.
Over the last three years, more than 300 people from Wyndham have been taken to hospital as a result of car crashes and 10 people have died on Wyndham’s roads this year alone.
Mr Thomson warned Wyndham’s young drivers to think of how his life has changed the next time they get behind the wheel.
“They’ve got to realise that driving a car is a privilege, it’s not a right,” he said.
“What they’ve got under them is a deadly weapon and if they’re drinking, it’s an even deadlier weapon.”
Mr Thomson said the drunk driver that caused the accident where he sustained his injuries was eventually arrested and taken to court where he received a $1000 fine.
Anyone who needs counselling as a result of road trauma should visit www.rtssv.org.au or call 1300 367 797.
