Action call on young driver car accidents
The parents of a promising young Burnham FC footballer who died in a car crash at the age of 17 have joined a call for the government to place tighter restrictions on newly qualified young drivers.
As part of campaign group Forget-me-not Families Uniting, Glenn and Michele Skivington, from Cookham, are among 40 bereaved families demanding immediate action to tackle ‘the unacceptable and disproportionately high number of young driver and passenger deaths on UK roads’.
Burnham FC youth player Luca Skivington was a passenger in a BMW 118D when he suffered fatal injuries in a crash in Beaconsfield in August 2019.
The driver was a recently-qualified teenager who later received a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to causing death by careless driving.
The newly formed campaign group says that ‘enough is enough’ and is campaigning for the introduction of graduated licences which would restrict driving privileges for the under
24s in the first six months of driving.
Already in place in countries like America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, graduated licenses encourage greater concentration and skill levels in young drivers by forbidding them to carry other young passengers in their car and limiting times and road conditions that they can venture out in in the first six months of qualifying.
In those countries, graduated licences have brought about a reduction in the number of crashes involving young drivers.
In 2022, 4,935 people were killed or seriously injured in the UK from a crash involving a young driver. Statistics show drivers aged between 17-24 are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on the roads.
Speaking out with the support of road safety charity Brake, the parents hope their message will encourage change.
This week, the AA has also written in support of graduated licences in its Motoring Manifesto and last month 11 professors and road safety campaigners penned an open letter to the government calling for it to tighten driving restrictions for young people.
Forget-me-not Families Uniting campaign spokesperson Sharron Huddleston said: “How many more young people need to die before action is taken? We can’t sit back any longer and just watch as more and more young people are killed or seriously injured in road collisions. Our group was formed as a means of reaching out to the Government collectively, as individual contacts resulted in no action.”
The Department for Transport runs its THINK! educational programme and said it is looking forward to receiving the findings of its £2million Driver 2020 research project which looked at improving road safety for young and novice drivers.
It stated that it has no plans to introduce any further restrictions on younger drivers and a spokesperson added: “Every death on our roads is a tragedy and we continue to work tirelessly to improve road safety.
“We’ve commissioned research designed to help learner and newly qualified drivers improve their skills and safety, while our THINK! campaign is specifically targeted at young drivers.”