When drivers’ licenses were first introduced in Queensland over a century ago, Toowoomba beat Brisbane for a dubious honour. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

At first there was no licensing for drivers of motor vehicles, then cars were registered, drivers were registered, and in January 1923 we got system like we have today with the introduction of the License for the Drivers of a Motor Vehicle.

These licenses didn’t have photographs, but required physical descriptions of the driver, such as age, height, complexion, eye, and hair colour. The license was valid for just twelve months.

When these licenses were introduced, it took just days before Toowoomba had the “honour” of getting the first prosecution under Queensland’s new drivers’ licence laws. Brisbane’s first prosecution was on the 23rd of January against a man who was found driving a motor car without a driver’s license, the fine being 10/- and 3/6 court cost. Brisbane of course claimed the honour of being first, but it was trumped by Toowoomba by eleven days. That’s because on Thursday the 12th of January the first prosecution was quietly processed in the Toowoomba Police Court.

Twenty-one year old Mr. Roland Richard Carey of Stuart Street, Toowoomba, was fined 5/- and 3/6 costs for driving a motor cycle without having a driver’s licence. Thus Toowoomba beat Brisbane by nearly a fortnight.

Carey went onto become one of the most troubled Queensland drivers in those early days, and you’ve got to wonder why he persisted driving at all.

His woes began shortly after his historic conviction, but at first didn’t involve a motor vehicle at all. Carey was working as a machinist when he sustained a compound fracture and lacerated wounds on the ring finger of his left hand, when it was caught in a sandpaper machine. The ambulance attended and his finger was saved.

With Carey’s ring finger mended, he then got married to the organist of the Methodist church. After that Carey went on a driving rampage.

In 1934 he was heftily fined £4 for travelling over the speed limit at between 30 and 32 miles an hour down Margaret Street. That’s under 50 kilometres per hour and much the same limit as today.

In 1935 he was fined 5/- with 6/- costs, for failing to have affixed to his motor vehicle the current registration labels.

In 1937, Carey was driving a meat van for his employer, the butchers Samuel Watson and Sons. The van was a Chevrolet one ton truck, with S. Watson and Sons painted on the side, and fully laden with 12cwt or 610kg of meat from the firm’s slaughter yards.

Coming the other way was a 14 horse power 1937 model Vauxhall car driven by William Cossart who was a nurse at the Willowburn mental hospital. The two vehicles collided on the corner of West and Hill Streets. Roland’s van ran off the road, narrowly missed a tree, struck a fence and knocking out one panel. Meat was spilled all over the road. The front part of the van was so seriously buckled that today it would have been a write-off.

In 1938 the mental hospital nurse sued Carey, or more specifically his employer, claiming that Carey drove the Chevrolet van so negligently and unskilfully that he alone caused the accident. The judge agreed and judgement was given against Roland for damages, together with court costs for a total of £52/9/6.

Even just adding up these few incidents, Carey’s driving had cost around $30,000 in today’s money.

Carey’s driving woes continued. In 1954, even his son George and his wife Nellie were taken to the Toowoomba hospital after the car in which they were travelling overturned on the corner of Ruthven and Margaret Streets.

Come 1965, Carey was aged sixty-four years old – forty-three years after he claimed Queensland’s first drivers’ license conviction – when he was fined for failing to give right of way. He was battling Queensland’s driving laws to the bitter end.

Roland Richard Carey passed away in 1987 aged eighty-six, not from a traffic accident, but from natural causes.

His ashes are interred at Pinnaroo Lawn Cemetery in Brisbane but sadly his name is incorrectly recorded, and there’s nothing to indicate the esteemed place that he holds in Queensland legal history.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4AK.

Photo credits:
Representation of the 1937 Chevrolet and Vauxhall accident, Toowoomba – ColPilot image.
Nurses quarters, Willowburn Mental Hospital, Toowoomba, 1933 – Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette, 16th October 193, page 8.
Roland Ricard Carey, Pinnaroo Lawn Cemetery and Crematorium, Bridgeman Downs, Brisbane – HelenL Castle 2021 via Find a Grave website.