A mother-of-two left brain damaged by a head-on collision with a driver high on methadone is begging for tougher drug driving laws.
Corinne Luffman was horrifically injured in 2014 when a car crossed double lines on the Pacific Highway in northern NSW and hit her.
She said the crash that killed former Home and Away actress Jessica Falkholt, 29, her parents, and 21-year-old sister Annabelle brought back painful memories.
Corinne Luffman (pictured with husband Dane) was left brain damaged by a head-on collision with a driver high on methadone is begging for tougher drug driving laws
She said the crash that killed former Home and Away actress Jessica Falkholt, 29, her parents, and 21-year-old sister Annabelle (all pictured) brought back painful memories
Like the man who crashed into the Falkholts on Boxing Day, Christopher Leslie Hammond had taken 60mg of methadone when he hit Ms Luffman.
He was convicted of dangerous driving but only fined $2,000 and given a 12-month suspended sentence and banned from driving for two years.
‘I’m permanently disabled — I can’t work, I can’t drive at night, I went through months of operations, I lost three teeth, my nose is smashed in and he’s now allowed to drive,’ she told the Daily Telegraph.
‘I’m permanently disabled — I can’t work, I can’t drive at night, I went through months of operations, I lost three teeth, my nose is smashed in,’ she said of her injuries
Ms Luffman and Dane in 2014 before her life-changing car crash with the methadone user
‘I can’t understand how it can be legal to take methadone, which can make you drowsy, and drive?’
Ms Luffman said the Falkholt’s death should have been a ‘wake up call’ for NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian to ‘stop the madness’.
She wants a review of laws that allow users of the legal heroin substitute to drive, which she ‘can’t believe is still happening’.
The premier is under pressure from her backbench to enact tougher laws, and already brought in a inter-agency working group to review prescription drug driving rules.
Jessica Falkholt died on January 17, clinging to life for three weeks after her parents were killed instantly in the crash and six days after her life support was switched off
The driver that hit their car, Craig Whitall, had just taken methadone and was driving on a P-plates after getting his disqualified licence back only a year earlier
‘We need to ensure that drivers are not impaired and a risk to others on the road … If there is more for us to do, then we will do it,’ Ms Berejiklian said.
Jessica Falkholt died on January 17, clinging to life for three weeks after her parents were killed instantly in the crash and six days after her life support was switched off.
The driver that hit their car, Craig Whitall, had just taken methadone and was driving on a P-plates after getting his disqualified licence back only a year earlier.
Falkholt’s parents and her little sister Annabelle, 21, were farewelled at a joint funeral while she still clung to life in hospital