"Don't let this happen again"

By Sharron Huddleston

'DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.' These were the words used as the headlines in our local newspaper the day after my daughter Caitlin’s Inquest in September 2018. The words were from the Coroner, recommending a Graduated Driving Licensing system to be implemented nationwide to prevent future deaths from happening in the same circumstances as my daughter Caitlin was killed in, as a teenage passenger in a young novice drivers car.

Sadly, horrific deaths on our roads involving young drivers continue. This is despite repeated calls for action and clear evidence from experts, research, and other countries that have seen significant reductions in young driver crashes after introducing elements of Graduated Driving Licensing. As a bereaved parent, I would not be writing this blog if the Government had acted decades ago.

July 14th 2017 – the day our families lives changed forever

“Do I look OK Mam?” Little did I know that these would be the very last words that my precious youngest child Caitlin would say to me that evening.

Caitlin was just 18-years-old when she accepted a lift to a restaurant from her 18-year-old friend, who had passed her driving test four months previously. Heartbreakingly, just moments after leaving our family home, our beautiful, quietly spoken, kind, sensitive and loving daughter was killed in a fatal road traffic collision on the A595 in the village of Bootle in Cumbria at approximately 7.55pm on a rural road.

Caitlin's friend had lost control on a bend in the wet road - too fast for her experience of driving, the Coroner said. The car was significantly side impacted by a van travelling in the opposite direction. Caitlin died on impact. Her friend driving was also killed and the back seat passenger and the van driver were both seriously injured.

In this one crash alone four families' lives were affected - two families bereaved and two people seriously injured.

At my daughter’s Inquest in September 2018, the Coroner for Cumbria said the crash was due to the newly qualified driver’s inexperience. There were no breaking of any laws. No mobile phone, drugs or alcohol use. The main cause of young driver crashes is youth and inexperience.

This is a human made problem that can be prevented. Why do Government Ministers and society put cars before human lives? This is not acceptable. Something has to change to stop this needless loss of lives.

I now know that young drivers are disproportionately likely to be involved in a crash, and that almost a quarter (24%) of people killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads are in a collision with a young driver, even though this age group makes up only about 7% of the total driving population.

In any other walk of life, if this much harm was happening to our younger generation there would be a public outcry, yet young deaths through road crashes seem to be accepted by society. Why?

Learning in the hardest way imaginable

A few months after this tragedy, I was made aware of a law that has been in place in other countries for many years, and has proven to reduce young driver and young passenger deaths. This law is called a Graduated Driving Licence and international evidence shows that GDL can reduce collisions involving young drivers by 20-40%.

GDL systems are a phased approach to driving which builds experience to minimise risk to young and novice drivers.

One element of this law which struck me was that newly qualified teenage drivers could not carry their peer age friends as passengers for a limited time after passing their driving test, until they had gained more experience. I discovered that with every extra same age passenger, young drivers are 4 to 5 times more likely to have a crash.

It was and still is absolutely heart-breaking for our family to know Caitlin’s death was preventable, if only the UK had implemented this life saving law many years ago.

We as a family cannot change the inaction of past Governments, but we cannot let another 20 years pass without progress to protect our younger generation. So I set up ‘Caitlin’s Campaign’.

Caitlin Huddleston, forever 18

The Coroner at Caitlin’s Inquest agreed that strengthening of our driving licensing system would help prevent future young deaths and wrote a Preventing Future Deaths Report to the Department for Transport. Since Caitlin’s Preventing Future Deaths Report in 2018 there have been six more from Coroners around the country - all calling for a strengthening of the driving licensing system in the UK. This speaks volumes.

I want to let all parents of teenagers and young drivers themselves know the risks posed to them upon passing their driving test. Everything that I was unaware of before Caitlin’s preventable death. I feel so passionate about this.

This is now my focus to carry on living. I am a voice now for Caitlin. It’s sadly too late for my precious daughter, but through her name I hope to stop this tragedy from happening to any other family.

There’s a duty of the decision makers in Government to protect our inexperienced young drivers, their passengers and other road users. Our children should not be classed as statistics in road crashes, they are the most precious gifts we have been given as parents.

In loving memory of my precious daughter Caitlin Lydia Huddleston. Aged 18.