Kerre Woodham: Dangerous driver's heavy toll

Hopefully, as you read this, I'll be alive and well and burbling away on the radio as is my custom of a Sunday morning. I will have driven to Tauranga, I will have been MC at the Tauranga Business Awards, I'll have run my 25k with my Bay of Plenty friends and I will have driven back to Auckland without incident. But you never know, do you?

You can set out to visit your parents, as Karen McGregor-Dawson did last week. You can ensure your vehicle is properly maintained. You can be driving safely and defensively, and despite all that, in a heartbeat, life as you know it is over.

Ms McGregor-Dawson is in hospital with serious injuries and doctors reckon it will be more than 18 months before she can consider herself recovered. Her life will never be the same and all because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Her car was hit head-on by the driver of a stolen Mercedes, a teenage lowlife who was overtaking a line of cars. It was an impossible manoeuvre, one that shouldn't have been attempted by a skilled driver far less some inexperienced moron in a car too big for him to handle.

As a result, he smashed head-on into Ms McGregor-Dawson's car, leaving her seriously injured and trapped in her vehicle. Oh, and he also killed one of his dodgy mates and a hitchhiker who was travelling in the back of the Mercedes.

The mate I have no sympathy for - the hitchhiker - well, really. What was he doing getting into a Merc driven by a teenager? When I was a hitchhiker I made judgment calls all the time, and I wouldn't have climbed into that sort of car driven by that sort of driver. He paid the ultimate price for his lapse of judgment and I feel very sorry for his family.

As for the driver of the stolen Merc, well, what do you know? He escaped without a scratch. Got to love that German engineering. And a few months from now, he'll appear in court and he'll be very sorry. He'll cry as his defence lawyer tells the judge that not a day will go by that he won't regret the decision he made to steal the car. His client, the lawyer will say, misses his mate and will forever carry the blame of killing him. And the judge will nod and look stern and tell the lowlife that examples must be set and this sort of behaviour must not go unpunished and he'll probably go to jail for two to three years.

Maybe by the time this gets to court, Karen McGregor-Dawson will be walking without a limp. Maybe not. The teenage lowlife, who cannot be named because of his age, will walk, without a limp, from the courtroom and probably straight into a youth facility where he'll be out in a matter of months. It's all so utterly predictable. Who would have thought tragedy could become so commonplace and banal?

Every time I get behind the wheel of my car and head south, I feel like I'm taking my life in my hands. My aunt, who's a nun, gave our family a driver's prayer many years ago and I still recite it as I head out of the driveway. I have a St Christopher medal. If I knew a Muslim prayer for travellers, I'd say that too. I make sure I tell my family I love them, and then I'm off. Once I'm on the road, I'm OK. I'm not white-knuckled, peering around every corner, expecting a juggernaut to wipe me off the planet at the next turn. Because by the time I'm on the road the die is cast. What will be, will be.

I've done my bit to ensure I arrive at my destination safely. What other people do is beyond my control.

I don't fear armed intruders coming into my home. Although I've been robbed, I don't worry about the house being broken into while I'm asleep. Because I know I am far more likely to come to grief at the hands of a teenage oik in a stolen car or an arrogant twat in a high performance machine who believes he can drive at whatever speed he likes. So keep those speeding tickets coming, officers.

Harass those kids if they're driving cars they have no business being in. And maybe a few more of us will survive the road trip from hell.