By Rosaleen Macbrayne
TAURANGA - A Mt Maunganui couple who launched a nationwide petition at the end of May asking the Government to toughen up on drink-drivers say they are getting a good public response.
But Eddie and Anne McMullan, grieving for their only child Nedrina, who was killed by a drink-driver in December 1996, want to enlist more people to help gather signatures.
They are seeking a law introducing a mandatory manslaughter charge for every drink driver who kills, and a 10-year prison term without parole for a conviction.
The petition will run until September and be presented to Parliament early in October.
"It is a life sentence for us," said Mr McMullan, of his daughter's death at 18.
Said his wife: "We need a really strong deterrent to make people think more about drinking and driving.
"At the moment, it looks as though life is cheap."
Gregory Corbett Cameron, then aged 37, was sentenced in February 1998 to seven years in jail. He is due to come up for parole next March, which the McMullans plan to oppose.
Nedrina McMullan died in Tauranga Hospital two weeks after the repeat drink-driver veered on to the wrong side of Omanawa Rd in the lower Kaimai Ranges, smashing into the van being driven by her fiance, who survived.
The young couple, national rock'n'roll champions, were weeks away from getting married.
A small shrine on the narrow, winding rural road marks the accident spot and is tended by Nedrina McMullan's parents.
Cameron, whose blood-alcohol level was 21/2 times over the limit, was doing 92 km/h on a corner with a speed limit of 35 km/h.
Chillingly, Nedrina McMullan told her mother two weeks before the smash that she had dreamed of her death in a car accident. She even wrote a will, leaving money to the SPCA and her riding gear to the horse management course she was about to graduate from.
"The last thing she said was 'See you later, Mum.' We saw her, but she didn't see us," Mr McMullan said.
Parents seeking petition backers
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