Driving restrictions for young people needed to ‘save lives’

A mother whose 20-year-old son died alongside two teenagers in a car crash is calling for graduated driving licences to be introduced in the UK.

Bridget Lucas, from Cricklade in Wiltshire, is campaigning for tighter rules for young drivers, such as restrictions on having passengers, after her son Lawrence Bruce died in a crash caused by fatigue in August 2022.

“Every occasion such as birthdays, Christmases, watching other people graduate, seeing his friends have children – everything like that is so hard that he’s not here to do it,” Ms Lucas said.

The Department for Transport said it was focussing on its THINK! road safety campaign and had no plans to introduce graduated licences.

Mr Bruce was returning from a music event in Oxfordshire when the car he was in crashed on the A420 in August 2022.

He died at the scene alongside fellow passenger Joseph Sharpe and the car’s driver Callum Leighton, who were both 18. The car’s two other passengers survived.

“Nobody really knows what happened,” Ms Lucas told BBC Radio Wiltshire.

“Everybody was asleep in the car,” she said. “We think the driver probably fell asleep too and veered into an oncoming coach.”

An inquest in February 2023 concluded the crash was caused by fatigue.

When asked if she has any resentment towards the driver, Ms Lucas said: “Absolutely not, no.”

“The driver had not been drinking. The driver was young. He was inexperienced,” she added.

“We know that young people’s brains are not mature until they’re about 25.

“It wasn’t his fault. There was nothing to stop him driving. It’s just sadly – very sadly – one of those things.”

Ms Lucas described her son as a natural entertainer and music lover who was “full of life” and who “completed the family”. He was studying business at Bournemouth University and would have turned 23 this week.

Ms Lucas said she had joined other bereaved families to campaign for graduated driving licences to stop more families going through similar experiences.

“Losing a child, for anybody, is clearly hard,” she said. “Losing a child where, arguably, it could be prevented by a change in the law… it’s not going to save all lives, but it could save so many. That’s really my focus.

“Let’s make some change. Stop these deaths.”

Graduated driving licences already exist in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, some US states, Finland, Norway, Sweden, France and Northern Ireland.

Ms Lucas is calling for a UK-wide version to be rolled out which would mean new drivers could not carry passengers under the age of 25 until they have been driving for six months, or have turned 20.

“It’s to stop young people having a group of friends in a car when they don’t have the experience to handle the distractions,” Ms Lucas said.

“It’s just about giving them some time to drive on their own and improve their own skills before they have the responsibility of having passengers in the car.”

The overall campaign is led by Crystal Owen, from Shrewsbury, who lost her 17-year-old son Harvey when he was a passenger in a car that crashed in north Wales in November 2023. Three other teenagers were also killed.

The campaign is calling for:

• A minimum six-month learning period for learner drivers before they are eligible for a practical test.
• For the first six months after passing their test, or until they turn 20, drivers should not carry passengers aged 25 or under unless accompanied by an older adult
• All cars must be fitted with a tool that could smash open a window if a car is trapped, to allow occupants to escape to safety.
• Violating the rules would result in six penalty points, leading to immediate licence suspension.

Six mothers of road crash victims, including Ms Lucas and Ms Owen, have now delivered a petition calling for stricter driving laws to Downing Street after it was signed by more than 100,000 people.

Since the event, Ms Lucas said she heard from more parents who wanted to support it.

“The group has now got well over 100 members,” she said.

MP for the South Cotswolds, Dr Roz Savage, said the work Ms Lucas has done to raise awareness was “admirable”.

However, she added restrictions may “unfairly disadvantage” young people in rural areas where public transport is “often non-existent”.

Ms Lucas argued the temporary restrictions are designed to save lives and not disadvantage, adding: “There is no greater disadvantage than having no life.”

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Every death on our roads is a tragedy and our thoughts remain with the families of everyone who has lost a loved one in this way.

“Whilst we are not considering graduated driving licences, we absolutely recognise that young people are disproportionately victims of tragic incidents on our roads.

“We are determined to tackle this, including through our THINK! campaign, which has a focus on men aged 17-24 as they are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than other drivers.”

Lorna Lee, campaign manager at the AA, said that while more education could form part of a graduated drivers licence system, the presence of young passengers was the factor the motoring body sees “time and time again” in serious crashes.

“We know that for every similar age passenger that is carried with a young driver, that crash risk increases,” she said.

“So if you can just remove that risk for a short period of time after they have passed their test, we think you would start to see a real improvement in the death and serious injury rates amongst that demographic.”