As I was making my way to work on Monday morning, I had a very good reminder that along with the beauty of the place, comes an immense responsibility when driving on country roads. It was around 6am as I was travelling on a road leading to the Hume Highway, with a speed limit of 100 km/h. It was still dark and I was approaching a section of roadway that had a thick coverage of trees and bush positioned close to the bitumen on both sides.

For many of the longtime residents in our communities, the prospect of wildlife jumping out at you is probably something that is at the forefront of your minds when you are driving at dawn and dusk. I’ve spent enough time on the roads down here to have seen injured and killed animals, and I know that it can happen a fair bit and you really need to drive to the conditions during those peak times. I’d never had a situation where something had jumped out at me and wasn’t sure how I would react.

Sure enough, it happened. Out of nowhere, a kangaroo came straight out of the trees and into the front part of my car. I didn’t have time to react, but had already started to slow down as I approached the dense foliage. I was on high alert from that point on and made sure that it was slow and steady all the way.

As I continued on my journey, I turned onto the Hume Highway and saw a semi trailer tipped on its side in the middle of the roadway. Fortunately, there had been no significant injuries with this one, but it was another reminder about our responsibilities when we get behind a wheel.

It doesn’t matter how good a driver we are, there is always the potential for that animal to jump out in front of us or that unanticipated turn in the road that we can’t see well in the darkness. The consequences of not driving to the conditions can be devastating not only for the person at the wheel and their passengers, but for all other road users. Stay safe.

Nb: I’m pretty sure the kangaroo just deflected off my car and was not badly injured…