In response to the piece from June 2025, Issue No. 11, about Paul Turley’s accident – I can’t imagine how it must feel killing someone in the event of an accident. He made a mistake and he has to live with this memory.
When I was in my late 20s, I had a nice high-powered sports car, flogging it all the time and blowing the engine and turbo, so I did a V8 turbocharged engine swap. One summer night, kicking back with mates at my place drinking up, time was getting late, so we all decided to break and get a good night sleep for a Saturday right cut.
I took my car out to a car wash in another suburb. There is a BP servo/wash at the end of my street – I don’t know why I didn’t just go there, but the feeling of showing off my car was on my mind. It was there I met someone who wanted to drag race me.
We both went around the round about and planted it hard down the straight, and, as we got closer to the intersection, my right wheel turned and I slammed the left side onto the traffic lights, wiping it clean off the ground. I landed around 80 metres or so on the other side of the road and got out, did a runner, but cops caught up to me that night. It was 3 am.
I’m fortunate I didn’t end up killing anyone that night. I usually always have a passenger with me, but that night I didn’t have anyone in my car.
When I went to the wrecking yard the next day to pick up the car, I saw the left side all caved in, roof all smashed and chassis twisted. I didn’t know how bad a shape my car was in, so I told them to keep it as I had no point taking it.
So was my lesson learnt about drinking while driving? Well, I got my licence back, the car had an interlock, and I didn’t drink as I had that. I really don’t want to lose my new car that I have.
