A spirited 96-year-old South Australian woman has shared how she almost stopped driving when she was a younger woman after a semi-trailer collided with her car and dragged it along for several kilometres.
Mary, and her husband Les, escaped without a scratch and while she almost shied away from driving entirely, returned to the road just 12 months later.
Mary appeared on the ABC Radio Adelaide program, Adelaide Mornings with host Paul Gough. At first, she mentioned how her upbringing included very few cars as her family preferred to walk everywhere.
“We didn’t have much travel. My grandmother had a car, a Ford I believe, but Mum and Dad didn’t feel they needed it then. Course we all had good legs and could walk. Mum and Dad, they didn’t get a car until 1957,” she said.
The young family also relied on the occasional train trip, and later, public buses.
Around the same time, the recently married couple purchased their very own Holden. Mary said her husband, Les, wanted to be certain they had the money to afford a car outright before purchasing it.
Then he made a decision she initially disagreed with.
“Eventually, I learnt to drive it [the Holden. Actually, I didn’t want to drive; Les was going to drive, I didn’t know about me,” she shared.
“He was very insistent. He said ‘I’ve paid for you to get your licence and you’ve got to drive it’. It was the only thing he ever made me do.”
So why didn’t Mary drive? She said, “I think the fear was that I didn’t really want to damage the car. I wanted the streets all to myself!”
Unfortunately, it’s rare to have an empty stretch of bitumen. And something can always go wrong.
Mary shocked Paul when she started talking about a major crash she experienced early on in her driving life. The accident occurred on Port Wakefield Road, the major arterial road heading out of Adelaide’s north.
“A semi-trailer took my rear door and all of the front of me. Les was sitting next to me and he said “Don’t brake, just go along with the truck’ and eventually he went on and we couldn’t get out of the car. It was a terrible mess,” the 96-year-old said.
Luckily, they were able to power on and reach Port Wakefield, where they could rest and recover.
“By the time we got to Port Wakefield, the trailer had well gone. I don’t think he really knew what had happened to me but it was a terrible mess and I didn’t want to drive then,” Mary added.
With no physical injuries from the crash, Mary was still reluctant to drive. For the next 12 months she didn’t.
But Les was unconvinced and clearly hoped she could overcome her fears and get back on the road.
He helped her achieve this by purchasing a new car as a wedding anniversary present.
“Les brought me home a little Morris 11. I looked out and went ‘What’s that doing in the drive?’ and he said ‘I’ve bought you another little car, see what you can do with that mug’.”
And so, Mary was back on the streets and avoided further accidents.
