What does it really feel like to be in the passenger seat when someone’s speeding down a Melbourne street at 220km/h with no seat-belts on?
Amber Community north west metro regional coordinator, Phil Preston has never forgotten the answer he got to that question 20 years ago.
During a school road safety session, he asked a teenage boy who had been in that situation “What did you do?”
“He said, ‘I wrapped the seat-belt around my arm.’ It occurred to me that there are a lot of people feeling scared and vulnerable in cars and they are not saying anything,” Mr Preston said.
That moment lit the spark for Amber Community’s latest initiative– a “conversation van” pulling up on Melbourne streets during Law Week (19-25 May) to collect raw, unscripted stories from everyday road users.
The van will serve as a mobile storytelling hub, encouraging people to open up about near misses, tough lessons, moments of fear, or the split-second decisions that changed everything.
“We want to hear the stories about the choices people are seeing every day. And we’re hoping people are going to be honest enough to tell us the choices they are making every day,” Mr Preston said.
“Approximately 95 per cent of the loss that happens on the roads occurs as a result of a person making the wrong choice.”
Held during both Law Week and National Volunteer Week, the initiative also honours the volunteer speakers who bravely share their lived experiences in Amber Community’s education programs.
“At every session, one of our speakers will share a story of when ‘it did happen to them’. Their stories are extremely personal and very confronting,” Mr Preston said.
“And they get people to connect with the choices they are making in their own lives.”
Most importantly, it’s about making people feel heard– and seen.
“I know for a fact…people are definitely not being heard, in many sessions people will say ‘I’ve never talked about this with anyone’,” Mr Preston explained.
“The first step to doing anything about everything, is a conversation.”
