Childhood car accident fuels Orange-Cabonne road safety officer’s fight to reduce driver fatigue
Andrea Hamilton-Vaughan was six years’ old when her father fell asleep behind the wheel of the family car.
In the crash that followed, Ms Hamilton-Vaughan and her sister Deborah were thrown through the windscreen.
She remembers lying in the middle of the road metres away from her sister, and a truck driver arriving at the scene.
“I remember the truck driver walking towards me in slow motion and now I know, when I look back on it after being first on the scene at other people’s crashes, he would’ve thought those two children … were dead.”
All four family members survived, although Ms Hamilton-Vaughan’s father remained in hospital for six months with pelvis fractures.
Ms Hamilton-Vaughan said the accident was the strongest memory of her childhood.
“We were lucky and every time someone tells me about a driver fatigue crash, I acknowledge that I am a lucky survivor,” she said.
Launch of national campaign
The crash has led to a determination to reduce and, if possible, eradicate fatigue-related road accidents.
The latest data from Transport for NSW showed fatigue played a factor in 12.5 per cent of road fatalities in 2022, behind alcohol (12.8pc) and speed (40.6pc).