Sleep-in saves Pamela's life

Tinbeerwah resident Pamela Carpenter is sick of hoons speeding along Smiths Road.

Darryn Smithnd

It looks like a quiet country road, but it felt very different last week when a late-model Toyota ploughed through Pamela Carpenter’s garden on Smiths Road.

By 8am each day, the Tinbeerwah woman is gardening, but exhausted from caring for her sick mother, she had slept in.

If she had not spent those extra hours snug in her bed, she could have been killed.

“I was lying in bed awake and I heard this giant thump, thump, thump,” she said.

“I flew out of bed and there was a car turned upside-down in the garden.

“I composed myself to see if the occupant was okay and found it (the car) had taken out the culvert and went through the garden.

“Normally I would have been in that spot where the car turned over. It was just that I decided to lie in bed.”

According to police and emergency services, a car left the road about 7.46am, rolled, and a man in his 60s was trapped inside.

He was swiftly freed by Queensland Fire Rescue Service crews and transported to Noosa hospital.

Ms Carpenter said while this accident involved an older man, the ongoing stream of close calls were the result of hoons using her rural street as a rally circuit.

“When cars speed up and down this road, you feel the ground shake and that’s not an exaggeration,” she said.

Smiths Road descends from the top of a hill. It is a narrow road that lacks line markings.

On the descent, the 50kmh speed sign is ignored as drivers navigate the twists.

Drivers put their foot down to compensate for the uphill climb, but when the road levels out, their speed does not.

She said she remembered her husband once reversing out of the driveway and as he began the upward drive, he was overtaken on the left by a speeding car.

Ms Carpenter said she had contacted police about road calming devices but with little success.

A council spokesman said they, too, would likely refer the case to police.

He said the road was not one where traffic-calming devices would be considered.