Geelong Advertiser: The Reality of coping with road fatalities

Geelong’s top traffic cop copes with the sight of dismembered bodies and unrecognisable faces by separating the person from the shell. “You’ve got to do your job and get over it,'’ Senior Sergeant Shane Coles says. His words are not cold, just pragmatic. But there are occasions when pragmatism does not help.

Such as the time, not long after Sen-Sgt Coles’ arrival at Geelong’s Traffic Management Unit in 1999, when he was called to a fatal scene on Cape Otway Rd near Moriac. He found a 13-year-old boy trapped, awake, in a car with his dead mother lying next to him. “What can you do? She’s in the car and he’s trapped in the car. You have to try to deal with it the best way you can,'’ he says.

In the countless accidents Sen-Sgt Coles has investigated in his 33 years in the force, that image has stayed with him. Other images are there too, if he looks. But he’d rather recall the crimes he has solved and reflect on the public promotion of safe roads and safe driving.

And, of course, the survivors. For various reasons, including policing, the road toll is decreasing. Transport Accident Commission figures show Victoria’s road toll has more than halved since 1987, despite a 52 per cent increase in vehicles on our roads.

But road trauma remains a constant part of society and a constant part of policing. Sen-Sgt Coles estimates each member of the Geelong and Surf Coast traffic management units _ including three sergeants and 14 lower-ranked members _ attend 15 or 16 accidents involving injuries a month.

On average, based on TAC statistics, police investigate just over one fatal accident in Geelong a month. Some of those accidents require the Melbourne-based Major Collision Investigation Unit, including accidents where an offence might have occurred.

But most of Geelong’s fatal crashes are investigated by the local team. Dissecting the statistics, Sen-Sgt Coles grabs the list from his office `fatal board’ _ a pin-board behind his desk holding a pile of A4 sheets with details of each tragedy. He rolls off the list: vehicle into object, car into power pole, and three soldiers killed when their car crashed into Swan Bay, and so on.