Young man taken too soon.

[big fella]

I work at a relatively small, private RTO (registered training organisation). Easiest way to think of it is as a small TAFE College that only teaches a few specialty courses. In our case, those courses relate to the heavy automotive industry, the mining sector and warehousing. My primary job is teaching truck and earthmoving mechanic apprentices.

We are only relatively young, opened four years ago, but the ultimate fear for many of us is losing a student to the road. As much as I dislike generalisations, stats say that young male drivers are more likely to die on our roads than any other.

Well, this morning, around 7a.m. a mini bus with a band and crew travelling from Brisbane to Sydney crashed somewhere near Coffs Harbour. The band members and crew hail from Geelong, and one of the two people tragically taken was a first year apprentice of ours.

This kid was in his early 20s, had a good head on his shoulders, and possibly 80 good years in front of him. His family will now be in the depths of sorrow while most of us are celebrating this Christmas time. Every Christmas from now will mark the time they lost their son.

I don't know who was driving, the circumstances under which they were driving, or any other information. Guessing serves no purpose, so I won't do it. The fact remains for me, that when the students return to my work next year, there'll be an empty seat where this young man should be sitting.

As well as generalisations, I generally dislike do good preachers, but I'm going to break that rule too. Especially across this Christmas period, take a deep breath before you do something stupid, and picture your Mum, wife, husband or child crying on christmas morning because their son, husband, daughter, mother isn't there to share the day with them.