Derbyshire mother raises awareness for road safety after tragic loss of son
A fifth of serious accidents in the last 5 years involved 17 to 24 year-olds
A Derbyshire mother is talking about life after losing her son in a car crash, as campaigners call for parents to keep supporting children once they past their test.
More than 23,000 people have been killed or seriously injured in crashes involving a driver aged 17 to 24 in the past five years, police have warned.
The stats...
Analysis of figures from the Department of Transport between 2021 and 2025 show that the accidents included 7,500 crashes where the driver was in that age bracket, 4,000 who were passengers being driven by a young driver, and 11,600 other road users including pedestrians and people in other cars.
Around a fifth of all road accidents that end with death or serious injury involve young drivers, defined as those age 17 to 24.
Police are encouraging parents to continue to supervise their children’s driving in the months after they pass their test, as part of a wider national scheme called Operation Spotlight, timed to coincide with the return to school and university, darker nights and worsening weather.
'Behind every number is a tragic story'
Dr Stephanie Alger, whose son Etienne was killed at the age of 18 when his car came off the road down an embankment in Derbyshire in June 2020, said it is important to remember that “behind every number is a tragic story”.
She had been concerned that her son was too young to drive at 17, and may take additional risks because he had Asperger’s, but also wanted him to be able to socialise.
He was driving in Dove Holes in Derbyshire at 66mph in wet weather and unknowingly had a nail in his tyre at the time of the crash.
The three passengers in the car survived, but Etienne, who preferred to be called Justin, suffered a catastrophic brain injury when the car hit a stone wall.
She and her husband had the haunting experience of sitting with her son for two hours after he was taken off life support before he died.
“I thought it was a bit like in the films where you take someone off life support and they die within five minutes,” she said.
'We went home without our son'
But in fact the family had to endure “two hours of him sort of gasping for air, and asking the doctors to give him more morphine, which of course they’re not allowed to do, to end his life more quickly”.
“It was just horrendous to watch, and and he died, and we went home without our son,” she said.
The couple have set up a charity, Just.Bathe, which provides toiletry kits to allow parents to bathe their child one final time as they lie in hospital.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Our first road safety strategy in more than a decade is tackling the root causes of deaths and injuries on our roads, and we are consulting on minimum learning periods, lowering the alcohol limit for novice drivers, and cracking down on drug driving.”