DECA founder dies

By Geoff Adams

Aug 18, 2022

Safety conscious: Eric Montgomery (1939-2022). Photo by Julie Mercer

The man who established Shepparton’s driver education centre and brought the city to national attention has died in Queensland.

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A policeman, Eric Montgomery was haunted by the deaths of so many young people on the roads and so set about establishing the Goulburn Valley Driver Training Complex in the 1970s.

The centre spawned the ‘Careful Cobber’ miniature vehicles used to introduce primary school-aged children to road safety.

Mr Montgomery died on Tuesday, August 16 at the age of 83, at the Bargara Palm Lake Care facility near Bundaberg.

He is survived by his wife, Sherry, son Simon, daughters Melissa and Camille and 16 grandchildren.

Mr Montgomery drove the development of the Wanganui Rd site in the early days until his departure in 1989 when it was known as the Driver Education Centre of Australia, or DECA.

The program rose to international prominence in 1985 when Prince Charles and his then wife, Diana, visited the site. Pictures of the royal couple and the Careful Cobber cars (one of them driven by Mr Montgomery’s daughter, Camille) were transmitted around the world.