"It can happen to anyone" - campaigners urge road safety in Warwickshire
Road Crash charity RoadPeace have called for safer driving in Warwickshire.
Last updated 17th May 2024
Campaigners gathered in Warwickshire to call for safer driving in the county, as victims sought to remind drivers of the lasting impact of road accidents.
The charity walk was part of RoadPeace's national efforts to clock up 1,766 miles of walking, running, cycling or horse riding over the course of the week to honour the 1,766 people killed on UK roads in 2022.
Among those at the event were Robbin and Patsy Suffield, whose teenage son Neil was killed in 1986 in a 17-year-old driver's car.
Robbin said: "It's happening to an awful lot of people all the time, but it's isolated and it's only an event like this that brings people together and you realise how many people are being involved."
Patsy said: "You learn to live with it, but it's always there in the background, always, and you often think of what might have been. But I think people don't realise until it happens to their family quite what the impact is."
Robbin and Patsy Suffield reiterated their calls for a graduated driving licence, which would put in place restrictions for young drivers who have recently passed their test.
As well as people walking from Hartsill Hayes Country Park, James Luckhurst from project EDWARD (Every Day Without a Road Death) led a group who ran 19 miles across Coventry and Warwickshire - one for each person killed on the county's roads in 2022.
James said: "You think what it's like to lose somebody in a collision and the catastrophe that is for anybody, any family. The ripple effect is so awful."