The shattering impact of South Australia’s road toll has been laid bare in a confronting and powerful 20-page wrap of the state’s flagship newspaper, The Advertiser.
The story of every person who has died on the road this year has been published in recognition that each person is more than a road toll statistic.
The masthead has acknowledged that it took the unfathomable death of the son of the Police Commissioner – in an alleged hit-run crash – to wake the state from apathy and is now using its reach and influence to implore South Australians to join them in a mission of vigilance, to lower the road toll, because “enough is enough”.
“If the smiling photos and heart-breaking tributes on these 20 pages of The Advertiser referred to the victims of a plane crash, the stories of lives cut short would reverberate for years,” said chief court reporter Sean Fewster, who has led the coverage of the court case of the driver accused of killing the Police Commissioner’s son.
“It is hard to look away from the fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and friends who are among the 101 people to die on our roads this year. The road toll for 2023 is up by more than 40 deaths than at the same time last year”.
The Advertiser editor Gemma Jones said the reflections of Grant Stevens and his wife Emma of their son Charlie’s “perfectly teenage boy room, beautiful life and generous spirit” gave a poignant window into their loving home, now shattered in a way which has torn at the hearts of every South Australian.
“Their powerful words should be read in every high school,” Ms Jones said. “We must stop this routine carnage in our state”.
Today’s coverage tells the stories of all of those who never made it home.
