Vic: The knock on the door that no one wants to hear

AAP General News (Australia)
12-12-2004
Vic: The knock on the door that no one wants to hear

By Melissa Jenkins

MELBOURNE, Dec 12 AAP - Nothing could prepare Glenda Barker for the knock on her door
that no one wants to hear.

She had seen news flashes of a fatal car smash throughout the day and the report on
the nightly TV bulletin told her three people had perished in a little red car north of
Melbourne.

But it was the knock on the door that did it.

"It was when the news finished, about one minute past seven, when the police knocked
on the door," she said.

"That's when I put two and two together and knew immediately that it was my mum, my
dad and my sister.

Ms Barker was 51 years old when she became an orphan on November 22, 1992.

Her family died returning home from their holiday caravan in Rushworth in northern Victoria.

A trailer that was incorrectly attached to a car came off and smashed into the family's
car on the Goulburn Valley Highway, near Nagambie.

"I knew they (the police) were talking to me, I knew that they said they were all dead,
I accepted that they were all dead but, surreal is a good word," Ms Barker recalled today.

"It was like I was operating out of my own body for some time. I functioned, but I
really don't know how.

"My own inner strength is what got me through."

Ms Barker was speaking after the Road Trauma Support Team Memorial Service on the steps
of the Victorian parliament.

She told the crowd, including family members of the 328 people killed on Victoria's
roads this year, how a new unintelligible world of police, coroners and courts opened
up before her after the accident.

Now Ms Barker remembers her family with more smiles than tears, but the grief would
always remain, she said.

"Grief is like the wind - sometimes it can hit you like a cyclone in the early days.

Now, it is just like a gentle breeze.

"(But) there's still a gust of the odd typhoon come through."

Transport Accident Commission (TAC) Minister Rob Hulls urged all Victorians to consider
how their family would feel if they had the next holiday season without them.

"We want them (drivers) and their family wants them to be around, not just for this
Christmas, but next Christmas as well.

"That's why it's crucial that they be patient, that they don't drink and drive, they
don't speed and if they're teaching a learner how to drive, spend a bit more time."

"There are people around who think all these messages are for someone else, they're not for me.

"Well I say to them they're bloody idiots because this message is targeted at every
single Victorian who gets into a car."

Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said speed, fatigue and alcohol
were the key factors that contribute to road deaths.

She said hopefully the new world-first saliva roadside drug tests would help reduce
the Victorian road toll, which is 19 more than last year.

AAP mj/gfr/arb/sd

KEYWORD: TOLL VIC REMEMBRANCE

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