Warwickshire couple who lost son in car crash 40 years ago demand new restrictions for young drivers
A COUPLE whose son was killed in a car crash 40 years ago are demanding the government takes action to prevent the tragic loss of young lives on Britain’s roads after years of inaction.
Robbin and Patsy Suffield, from Wootton Wawen, want to see changes made to the driving licence rules for young and new drivers aimed at preventing distractions that can lead to crashes and fatalities.
Their son, Neil, was an 18-year-old rear seat passenger when he and four others were killed and one seriously injured in 1986 when the family lived in Leicestershire.
The driver of the vehicle was inexperienced, was speeding, lost control and crashed head on into a bus.
Closer to home, it’s almost a year since three teenagers from Chipping Campden School were killed in a two-car collision on the B4035 Campden Road near Portobello Crossroads.
Harry Purcell, 17, Tilly Seccombe, 16, and Frank Wormald, 16, tragically lost their lives. They were in a car being driven by a fellow sixth-former. A woman and two children, travelling in a Fiat 500, were also seriously injured.
New rules, which the Suffields have campaigned years for, would restrict the number of passengers young drivers would be allowed to carry as well as introducing regulations for night-time driving.
Robbin, 85, told the Herald: “It’s so important for the government to take action on deaths from young driver crashes. Young people have got their whole lives ahead of them.
“They are promising, intelligent youngsters but the government has to reduce the continuing terrible toll resulting from the inexperience of newly qualified young drivers.”
His wife, Patsy, 83, added: “You are left absolutely bereft when you lose your child in a car crash. We’ve tried for 40 years to get something done. Young drivers pass their test and get their independence, but they don’t have the experience which is why the government needs to do more education with younger drivers.
“The frontal lobe of a younger person’s brain can be overactive until the age of 25. This means younger drivers are not very good at assessing risk and its consequences. They might think older people are being fuddy-duddy about this issue and will go ahead regardless, but a fatal car accident is so traumatic and affects so many other people.”
Patsy and Robbin stand alongside 40 other bereaved families demanding government takes action on deaths from young driver crashes because the statics are shocking.
According to road safety charity Brake:
4,935 people were killed or seriously injured in 2022 from a crash involving a young driver.
Young drivers are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured.
In Britain, young drivers between the ages of 17 and 24 are involved in 24 per cent of all collisions resulting in death or serious injury. The group accounts for just seven per cent of the total driving population.
Data from transport safety studies, car insurance companies and driving charities has shown that drivers under 24 are more likely to have crashes when they are carrying similar-aged passengers, when driving at night and when driving conditions are difficult.
Parents like Robbin and Patsy, whose loved ones were all killed in collisions involving young drivers, have formed a campaigning group called Forget-me-not Families Uniting.
The group wants the introduction of graduated driving licensing and wants an expert panel to advise the government on how this could work in the UK.
Several countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many US states, have introduced graduated driving licensing, which restricts the number of similar-aged passengers a young driver can carry in the car as well as night-time driving.
In those countries there has been a reduction in deaths and serious injuries in crashes involving young drivers of between 20 and 40 per cent.
The Automobile Association (AA) believes limiting what new drivers can do on the road will cut “needless deaths” and it backs graduated driving licensing.
The AA said motorists should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for at least six months after passing their test. It also called for new drivers to be required to keep a record showing they have driven on all types of roads.
AA president Edmund King said: “One of the major issues that needs to be addressed is the needless deaths of young drivers, their passengers and others caught up in these crashes.
“Each year nearly 5,000 people are killed or seriously injured in crashes involving at least one young driver. One-in-five young drivers crash within a year of passing their test.
“Most people don’t realise, until it is too late, that road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults. We owe it to the next generation to introduce positive measures that will help give them healthy and prosperous lives.”
Patsy said there had been initiatives to address the loss of young lives on Britain’s roads but somehow each one had lost momentum.
“There was a Private Members’ Bill in the early 1990s which was successful at first but then it ran out of time,” she said. “An online petition has now been started for people to sign and show their support of changes which will help save lives – it has reached 21,800 signatures.”
The petition can be signed at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/655298. It needs 100,000 people to support the petition for it to be debated in Parliament.
