When a pedestrian couple in their 40s was fatally mowed down on a suburban Queensland road four years ago, a coroner was examining a string of police pursuit deaths.
A drink driver being chased by police hit them at such a high speed that a woman's severed upper body slammed through the windscreen and hit the front seat passenger, giving him severe facial injuries.
The police driver had no idea he was travelling at more than 180km/h.
Four days before that tragedy, then police commissioner Bob Atkinson told an inquest into 10 chase-related deaths that tightening the rules on police pursuits would send the wrong message to hoons.
"My concern is that if we could not pursue, then the consequences for the community could be worse," he told coroner Michael Barnes on the last day of November 2009.
Sadly, the pursuit of a so-called hoon driver resulted in the deaths of Ronald Ellison, 46, and his wife Jacqueline Sylvester, 40, as they walked along Chambers Flat Road on December 4, 2009.
Acting Sergeant Philip Brock this week told an inquest into their deaths that he thought he was driving at 150km/h.
His police car, however, was travelling at more than 180km/h in an 80km/h zone in suburban Park Ridge south of Brisbane, an analysis of nearby CCTV footage found.
"I did not look at the speedo but I estimated 150km/h," Sgt Brock told coroner Terry Ryan.
Asked by counsel assisting the coroner, Peter Johns, if that was "unacceptably fast", Sgt Brock replied: "I believe it's fast."
Sgt Brock also admitted the police siren had not been turned on during the night-time chase of a rental Holden Statesman being driven by an inebriated West Australian miner at more than 200km/h.
Brett Glenbar, who hit the pedestrians, is now serving 10 years in jail for two counts of manslaughter.
In March 2010, three months after that police chase death, Coroner Barnes released 13 recommendations arising from his inquest into 10 road pursuit deaths between June 2005 and July 2008.
These deaths included 13-year-old schoolgirl Caitlin Hanrick, who was killed outside a Redcliffe school, northeast of Brisbane, in late 2006.
On Christmas Eve in 2010, then police minister Neil Roberts announced the Labor government would be accepting all of the coroner's recommendations.
Pursuits would be restricted to circumstances where there was an imminent threat to life, someone had committed a murder and the need to apprehend someone was "justifiable given the risks of pursuing".
New Queensland police pursuits laws came into effect in late 2011.
This occurred 12 years after Tasmania became the first state in Australia to impose similar bans on police chases.
Coroner Ryan's inquest has been adjourned until his findings are released, but this latest hearing proves the wisdom of putting restrictions on police drivers.
