Dear Mr. Graham Symes,

I would like to thank you for your extraordinary work for the community in organising and promoting the Traffic Offenders Program. The course was particularly broad and efficiently run. Without your determined efforts fools like me would not have a second chance. While I am yet to receive a conviction I know that the TOP will put me in better stead when receiving my penalty.

I know that I won’t be receiving a section 10, but at least I now know why. I am currently studying law and while I knew drink driving was a crime and how inconceivably immoral an ac it is, now I know just how incredibly ignorant I was to the far-reaching and devastating effects which rip through the community.

One week after finishing the course I was unlucky enough to be witness to an ‘accident’ of a drunk, provisional licensed driver who had been dragging another car and had lost control and hit a telegraph pole. Emergency services arrived and cut away the car, the driver had been crushed over onto the passenger seat. It was all the more terrifying knowing that no longer was I sitting at the community hall watching a screen but rather standing over a youth of a very tight-knit community. He was taken away from my semi-rural home town by the Westpac helicopter in the early hours of the morning. He died of severe spinal injuries later that day.

This story is no doubt is all too common to you. I thank you again for your determination and effort. Having spoken to many people attending they appreciated your work and each night would come away that little bit wiser – perhaps even seeing it from your eyes.

Kindest Regards Jack (name/address supplied)