Tuesday, November 17, 2009

And I thought Fiji drivers weren't so good

Hit the road, Jack and don't you come back no more,
no more, no more, no more)
Hit the road, Jack and don't you come back no more
What you say?
from w
I heard this story on the radio this morning and it's a warning to us folks who are getting a little older.... Now Yass is in the middle of NSW in Australia and Avalon is just out of Geelong where we live. Here's the story from the Herald Sun. Apparently he was on his mobile phone to his wife at one stage and she asked where he was - were there any landmarks, and he replied that he thought he saw the Westgate Bridge! You see it's possible that once you get onto a freeway you could go for hundreds of k without even one red light to slow you down!

NSW man makes wrong turn... to Geelong
Anne Wright November 17, 2009 8:45PM
ERIC, 80, said he loves to drive. And drive, and drive. Even if it is in the wrong direction, through a different state. He was missing for nine hours after he left his friend's house in Yass at 7.15am attempting to drive home to Pambula on the NSW south-East coast. But the man, named only as 'Eric', took a wrong turn and kept driving unconcerned about his unfamiliar surroundings.

He travelled nearly 600km before stopping at the Avalon BP service station on the Princess Hwy to ask for help from two police officers. Constable Tom Windlow and Leading Senior Constable Clayton Smith, from the Traffic Drug and Alcohol section, had stopped at the service station about 3.45pm after an operation in Corio.

'I was stretching my legs, waiting for Tom to come back to the car when this little old man came up to me saying he was lost," Sen-Constable Smith said. He handed me his mobile and asked if I could speak to his wife."

Eric's wife told the officers her husband, who police said suffers slight dementia, had been missing for nearly nine hours.

"Believe me, we never expected for her to say he had driven from Yass," Sen-Constable Smith said.

Eric was then taken to Sunshine police station where he was reunited with family friends who had driven down from Mt Eliza.

Sen-Constable Smith and Constable Windlow said the accidental adventurer had been very grateful for their help and told them many stories as they waited for his friends to arrive."When we asked him why he hadn't stopped earlier he replied, "I just like to drive," Sen-Constable Smith said.

Eric and his wife were reunited late yesterday afternoon.

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