Suspended

23 October 2023

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Tonight I drove our car for the last time home, I parked in front of the house and put my keys in a drawer. This family is facing a very big change.

As of 24 October 2023 I am no longer allowed to drive a car.

For 6 long months.

How did I get there?

I have to admit I have always been a distracted person and tend to collect little speed fines, most often even at the same camera`s on my home-work traject. On a bright sunny day in March, I received a letter from NSW Services (read: the government) that my overseas (read: Belgian) driving licence was about to be suspended for 3 months. To my biggest suprise I realised that I had been collecting demerit points and reached the number of 13 in which case you are not any longer allowed to drive.

A bit of context for who is interested: the Australian system is much less forgiving than Belgian one. While in Belgium you can keep on making mistakes and paying fines for the rest of your live, in Australia you collect demerit points and if your behaviour does not change you can`t drive any longer. Exemple: speeding 10km per hour = 1 point, speeding 25km on the highway = 3 points, crossing a red light = 3 points, speeding in a school zone (max 40km per hour ) = 3 points. In long weekends double demerits apply: so you can loose 6 points for speeding on the highway.

There are ways to cheat by saying your partner was driving the car in order to redistribute the demerit points between good drivers and bad drivers within one household. Something i could have done as Thomas is a perfect driver. However as new immigrant I simply didn`t know about the system at all, since i got that suspension letter in March 2023.

I discovered that I could apply for `good behaviour` which means you get 1 point back and then have to drive perfectly for 12 months. If you fail you are suspended with a doubled sentence. Tricky choice. First i didn`t believe I could do it, but someone said `you got no choice, you have to do it` and I decided to apply for good behaviour and stayed on the road. I was really stressed out for a while. I asked to kids to decorate my front window and got nice drawings of a snail and a turtle to remind me.

And i did surprisingly well!

At first i realised i was still making little mistakes at times, but I became aware of it, noted it down, shared my mistakes and progress at home, cultivated my awareness, and after a while I was a changed driver.

I was so proud of myself!

I celebrated each month my good behaviour. After a couple of months I really believed I could do it.

And then on dark winter evening 23 August it happened.

I had a good but long working day, I was very happy and winding down in my head, driving home at 9pm, no more traffic, i felt happy and relax. Then suddenly i got pulled over by the police ..... they told me i had crossed a red light... I can`t remember any of it! They just told me and that was it.

Game over.

That night I sobbed so deeply, i can`t remember the last time i had felt this way, I couldn`t stop crying for a long time. I was so disapointend...

• Because i really thought i was doing great, but appearantly not.

• Because there is reason why people loose their licence and could have killed someone (quote from the police), which is true and also confronting, hard to admit to yourself.

• Because this was going to make daily life so much more complicated for the full family, not only me

What is your plan, people ask me, well there is no plan. Just walking, taking busses, being slower everywhere.

I am sure it happened for a reason. And i am going to make the best of it.

Here are my intentions :

• be gratefull for the gift of more active time in my daily routine, enjoy my walking time (

• use my time on the public transport to do `nothing` but be in the moment, connect with inner myself. (I might write or read ? But definitely no phone!)

So tomorrow is the start of a new era.

An opportunity for change?

I am curious what it will bring me.