Tree unveiled for road crash victims in the West Midlands
Letters from families who have lost loved ones hang on the branches
A poignant letter tree featuring heartbreaking words from West Midlands families who have lost loved ones due to reckless driving has been unveiled.
The tree has been created by Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) in partnership with charity RoadPeace, police and local councils to give people the chance to read the letters and see the impact dangerous driving has on families.
It will remain on display in Brindley Place, Birmingham until Sunday, November 23 and will then tour the region until February 2026.
West Midlands Road Safety Partnership has committed to halving the number of people killed or seriously injured by 2030 and then achieve ‘Vision Zero’ by 2040.
But, at the launch of the Letter Tree, bosses across the region said more needed to be done to make the region’s roads safer.
Lucy Harrison, RoadPeace’s justice and outreach manager and West Midlands Group coordinator, lost her brother Peter Price in a hit and run incident in November 2014.
She said: “Our RoadPeace group has been invited to write letters for Letter Tree. I like to think it is a Tree of Hope, for change as well.
“I’m 11 years on next week and I can say it impacts every bit of my life still. It devastated my family, it was just before Christmas and it was absolutely the last thing you’d expect.
“As a sibling, I thought my brother would walk through the whole of my life with me. His life was cut short and so much was robbed from him.
“I ended up changing my job, changing my life, going to work for RoadPeace and meeting people I never would have otherwise and there isn’t a bit of my life it hasn’t impacted.
“I hope people will take a minute to reflect. To reflect on the fact road death is indiscriminate. It could sadly be your family tomorrow and we don’t want that.
“People sometimes look at me and others in Roadpeace and think ‘gosh are they still talking about this?’ We’ll never stop talking about it until our roads are safe.”
Roadpeace’s Diane Gall added: “It’s really important to me because my husband (Martyn) was killed by a driver using her mobile phone.
“My letter is to the driver, noting the devastation she has caused to my family and I hope it just raises public awareness of what their actions can do if they’re not using their car responsibly.
“It’s just devastating. It’s completely changed our whole lives. My husband has missed so many milestones. You just can’t imagine the pain, the grief, the trauma it has caused.
“We are not the same people as before. I hope people will come and read the letters. Sadly, these are all victims of road crime.
“There shouldn’t be these letters on this Letter Tree because drivers haven’t considered their actions.”
West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker said: “It’s Road Safety Week and we know too many lives are lost on our roads each year as a result of reckless and poor driving.
“It’s a very moving memorial to those loved ones. It is very moving and poignant.
“Every life lost and every serious incident on our roads needs to be avoided.
“There is still a great deal of work to do, we need to reduce speeds, we need behaviours to change, we need drivers to take more responsibility for the way they they behave on our roads.
“And we need to do more to make crossings safer and our roads safer for pedestrians and those cycling too.
Road safety commissioner Mat MacDonald said: “It’s just a really poignant symbol of the sheer scale of human loss that takes place on our roads every single day.
“It stands here as a reminder for all of us who have the ability to make a difference in this place to do everything we can to prevent such things happening again in the future.
“What we know from over 1,200 places across the world it is entirely possible to eliminate death and serious injury from our road network.
“Most recently we’ve seen in Helsinki zero traffic fatalities for the last year and there is no reason we should expect anything else for ourselves.
And West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster added: “We need to do all we can collectively if we are to achieve the aims we set out in our road safety strategy and our road safety action plan we’re all signed up to.
“We are seeing some modest reductions but I’m not remotely complacent about that.
“One person killed or seriously injured is one too many. That’s why in the West Midlands we’re all signed up to a plan to halve the number of people killed or seriously injured by 2030 and work towards Vision Zero by 2040.”