Father keeping Carmen’s legacy alive

“I DON’T want Carmen’s message to die.”

That’s why Ballarat’s John Maher is persisting with his long-running efforts to have road safety made an official part of secondary school curricula around the nation.

On November 18 this year, it will be 30 years since Mr Maher’s youngest daughter Carmen was killed in a single-car crash just minutes from the family home at the time in Bendigo.

Carmen, the only occupant, fell asleep at the wheel and her car ploughed into a tree.

She was just 18 years and three months old.

Two years before, Mr Maher himself was involved in a road accident in which a person died and which left him with serious injuries – putting an end to a successful insurance industry career and for which he still receives therapy.

But it was the sudden loss of Carmen – devastating Mr Maher, wife Ange and daughters Katrina, Michelle and Jasmine – that prompted him to dedicate himself to road safety education in the hope of making a difference in other people’s lives.

In 2022, after years of secondary school and corporate presentations, he self-published a book titled Carmen’s Legacy – A Journey of Tragedy and Hope, and wants it to be required reading in Australian schools.

Mr Maher, of Brown Hill, would ultimately like to see the topic of road safety become an official subject in Australian secondary school curriculum.

And despite what he describes as disinterest from politicians and government authorities, he’s not giving up.

“Since that day (when Carmen was killed) it’s become my passion,” Mr Maher said. “So that no other parent has to live the life we’ve lived.”

He developed a program called Carmen’s Road Safety and now travels constantly throughout Victoria and interstate delivering one-hour presentations to schools and businesses.

Mr Maher said he speaks at about 80 schools a year. He has also given presentations to every major bank, to insurance companies and Powercor.

But it is schools the 74-year-old is particularly focused on, and he estimates that more than 500,000 students have heard his message.

“We can educate an entire generation every year,” Mr Maher said.

A major component of the presentations is simply the giving and receiving of hugs: their importance, what they mean and the fact that when a person dies on the road, the opportunity is gone forever.

“The cuddle thing is the number one thing that hits the kids,” Mr Maher said. “We can’t give Carmen a cuddle and that’s what we miss the most.

“That’s the message from Carmen, through me, to them directly.

“I truly believe that over the years, Carmen has saved lives.”

Mr Maher said his efforts to persuade authorities to arrange and fund a formal education program have been unsuccessful so far, but he is determined to keep trying – even if it is just having the book available in every school library.

Many school officials have indicated strong interest in the subject, he said, encouraging him to continue lobbying authorities.

The book is available at carmen.com.au and facebook.com/CarmensLegacy, and Mr Maher can be contacted at [email protected] .