Updated ,first published
A 51-year-old Victorian woman killed in a serious crash south of Brisbane on Saturday night has been remembered as the “light of many” by her family and community hundreds of kilometres away.
Roza Abebwa, a mother of eight, was visiting family near Logan when the car she was travelling in with her two-year-old daughter and 28-year-old niece collided head-on with a ute and was thrown off the road.
Abebwa died at the scene.
In a fundraiser set up online, her eldest son Rashidi Edward said Abebwa was the “kind of person who made you feel safe, seen, and cared for”.
“She was selfless in every sense of the word, always putting her children and others before herself without hesitation. Mum wasn’t just our mum… she was everyone’s mum,” Edward said.
“We are heartbroken to say that life will never be the same without her.
“She was our foundation, our strength, and our home.”
Speaking to Nine, Edward said his mother “had to be one of the best human beings”.
Gode Edward, another of Abebwa’s sons, said the incident was not fair.
“She was innocent,” he told Nine.
Abebwa’s niece and two-year-old daughter were also injured in the crash, with the toddler in a stable condition at the Queensland Children’s Hospital on Monday.
Police were still investigating the crash on Monday, and had not ruled out a connection to a “very large-scale hoon event” that officers knew had been happening nearby on Saturday night.
Early investigations indicated the other car – a Ford Falcon ute driven by a 17-year-old girl – had its headlights off and was driving up the wrong side of School Road in Logan Reserve, south of Brisbane, in an attempt to overtake a line of three cars.
School Road, about half an hour’s drive south of the Brisbane CBD, has uneven grassed sections along both sides of the road and no bitumen shoulder.
With a single lane in each direction, overtaking is common, and multiple cars were seen crossing the centre line on Monday afternoon to pass a rubbish truck.
Close by, a teddy bear and bouquet of flowers had been left at the crash site, which remained strewn with debris.
On Monday, Logan Mayor Jon Raven called for stronger policing and tougher laws on hooning events across the state.
“The community is absolutely losing their mind,” he told Brisbane radio station 4BC.
“They want more police, they want harder laws, [and] they want more action to be done because we just cannot accept this sort of behaviour happening in our streets any more.
“This was a completely avoidable tragedy because this person – this grub – decided that they would overtake three cars all at once on a narrow road that’s poorly lit.”
Raven said police needed more resources from the state government to disrupt hooning behaviour and skid meet-ups, and the licences of people found guilty of hooning offences should be revoked.
“People are doing stupid things on the way to these events,” he said.
“There’s no consequences at the moment, so even if they do get caught, all the cops can do is impound it … but that car has no value to the hoon that’s using it.”
On Sunday, Acting Inspector Peter Venz said police were investigating whether speed, driver behaviour or vehicle compliance had contributed to the crash.
He criticised young drivers who were involved in hooning events and driving dangerously around the city.
“Half the reason they’re out there doing this is to try and get some footage so they can get some likes on their socials,” he said. “I find that quite sad.
“The community is sick of it. They’re scared. They don’t want to have to drive home at night and see this kind of behaviour.”
After the crash, a social media post said to be from the organisers of the hooning event said it had been cancelled. A second post sent “thoughts and prayers” to the Victorian woman’s loved ones.
The four teenage occupants of the ute were all taken to Logan Hospital, with Venz saying the 17-year-old driver had been tested for illicit substances or alcohol.
One of the four was also discharged on Sunday. Police had yet to lay charges on Monday.
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CORRECTION
An earlier version of this article identified the two-year-old girl as Roza Abebwa’s grand-niece. The two-year-old girl is Abebwa’s youngest child.
