FOR 24 years, Ballarat's John Maher has lived with a broken heart since the death of his daughter Carmen in a car crash.
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But he is determined to pass his own experiences on to the next generation of drivers to teach them what can happen with a split-second loss of concentration.
Mr Maher, who runs Carmen Road Safety, has been giving presentations at a number of schools around Ballarat in the past few weeks including St Patricks, Damascus, Phoenix P-12 and rounding out his talks at Loreto College on Thursday.
"With school rapidly drawing to a close in 2019, history shows that this is when young people take risks in so many areas," Mr Maher said.
"Most of the year 11 students I speak with are learning to drive.
"From age 16 when they get their learners to 18 when they can get their licence is two years and that's 730 days. Five days or 120 hours of learning is simply not enough.
"In the last school holidays five students lost their lives in that two-week period, and more students will lose their lives on Victoria's roads over the upcoming holidays."
So far this year, 29 people aged between 15 and 20 have been killed on the state's roads, a 190 per cent increase on the same time last year.
As well as losing his daughter, Mr Maher himself was seriously injured in a crash just over two years before his daughter was killed after she fell asleep at the wheel. His other daughter Michelle was in the third car on the scene.
Mr Maher said Thursday's talk was particularly poignant at Loreto as one student in the class, is Michelle's daughter.
"They heard how the policeman wouldn't let Michelle go to Carmen, how he wouldn't let Michelle hold Carmen's hand," he said.
Mr Maher asked the students to replace him with their dad, or their mum, because it was a policeman telling them how they had been killed in a car crash which he said had a huge impact on the students.
"So far this year, 242 people have been killed on Victoria's roads and we hope our future drivers will make our roads safe," he said.
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