Learning to win

By Shaun Inguanzo
A KEYSBOROUGH learner driver is in shock after winning a $35,000 Volvo in a competition she forgot she entered.
Ainslee Pickering, 18, won the inaugural Amy Gillett Foundation Road-Right competition targeting learner drivers and their attitudes to sharing the road with cyclists.
Ms Pickering said she entered the competition after an Internet advertisement popped up on her computer screen.
“It said it was for learner drivers, and I am a learner so I went into it and it said to put in your learner ID and info, and asked what you should do with bikes on the road while driving,” she said.
“I answered the questions and hit enter.”
Ms Pickering said she had since forgotten about the competition until last week the Amy Gillett Foundation called her to inform her she had won the inaugural Road-Right major prize – a new Volvo C30S valued at $35,000.
“They asked me if I was sitting down and then informed me I’d won the Volvo,” she said.
“I pretty much didn’t believe it for two days. I was pretty sure it was a scam.”
Ms Pickering rushed to tell her parents and friends the good news – but not even they believed her.
“I got a message to one of my best mates who I’d texted, who thought my phone had a virus,” Ms Pickering said.
“No one else believed it either.”
But on Wednesday, Ms Pickering had no choice but to believe it when Volvo handed her the keys to her new C30S at its Doncaster dealership.
“I guess I just want to say thank you to them, it’s just amazing,” Ms Pickering said.
“I never thought people won these things until now.”
Ms Pickering also had a message for motorists about showing courtesy for cyclists on the road.
“You don’t see them, kind of like motorbikes, so you’ve got to keep an eye out and make sure you take care,” she said.
“If you hit them they would be a lot worse off than what drivers would be, we’ve got something around us.”
Amy Gillett Foundation general manager Melinda Jacobsen said Road-Right was helping save lives on the road by teaching learner drivers about cycling habits.
“As intended, Road-Right tackles, from a grass roots level, the issue of cyclists and motorists sharing the roads,” she said.
“It acknowledges that in order to reduce death and injury resulting from cyclist and motorist interaction, we need to start educating our youth well before they start driving without supervision.”