DI AND Graeme McMurtrie will always remember the devastation they felt when they found out their 19-year-old daughter Hannah was involved in a fatal head-on collision on a remote NSW road.
“At that very moment our whole world splintered into a million pieces,” Mrs McMurtrie says in a new commercial which airs this week as part of Yellow Ribbon National Road Safety Week, part of the NSW Government’s Road Safety Campaign for 2018.
On March 15, 2013, Hannah was travelling on a highway near Taree when another P-plater crashed into the young woman’s vehicle. She was killed instantly.
“Having to identify Hannah in the hospital is an experience I wouldn’t put on any person,” Mrs McMurtrie says in the commercial.
Airing until May 6 as part of Road Safety Week, the commercial aims to warn other young drivers about the dangers of reckless behaviour the roads.
“To walk in and have that door open and see your child, dead on a slab, is nothing I would ever wish on any human being on this planet.”
With tears streaming down his face, Mr McMurtrie agrees.
“Yeah, I will never forget that.”
In 2017, a total of 392 people lost their lives on NSW roads, with 12,000 others seriously injured.
The NSW Government is joining the Safer Australian Roads And Highways (SARAH) initiative to encourage drivers to remember the more than 1200 lives lost on roads nationwide each year.
“When you sit behind the wheel of that car, please think about it and be considerate of others,” Mrs McMurtrie told Channel 9.
Sydney’s Harbour Bridge will also be illuminated in bright yellow as part of
the safety initiative led by Peter Frazer who campaigns for road safety improvement and trying to save other families from the devastation he experienced when his daughter Sarah was crushed by a truck while standing in a highway breakdown lane on her way to university in 2012.
The bridge will turn yellow at 6.25pm each night and will remain lit up until May 6.
NSW Minister for Roads, Maritime and Freight Melinda Pavey spoke with 2GB. She said: “It’s about trying to remind every driver to be their best selves, to be the best driver they can be when behind the wheel.”
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