'I don't want anyone to hear their child has died'

"I don't want any other family getting the 4am knock on the door, I don't want them being told their child has died," said Keena Entwistle, who lost her son Ethan when the car in which he was a front seat passenger crashed into a tree in Kent.

Ms Entwistle has been using her experience to educate sixth form students at St George's Church of England Foundation School in Broadstairs about road safety. Ethan was a pupil at the school.

"If we can stop one crash, if we can stop one injury, one fatality, then Ethan didn't die in vain," she said.

Danielle Hyde, director of the school's sixth form, said she was more concerned about the safety of young drivers following Ethan's death.

"We were all there at the funeral, we've followed the family the whole way through, so it's nice to come full circle and be able to see that Keena's now able to educate the next generation of drivers," she said.

"Hopefully we don't have such a close connection and this kind of accident happening again."

The driver of the car in which Ethan was a passenger in 2023 admitted causing death by dangerous driving and is due to be sentenced in August.

Ms Entwistle wants to see the introduction of graduated driver licences which would see young drivers forbidden from carrying passengers of a similar age.

According to national road safety charity IAM RoadSmart, a fifth of all collisions in 2023 involved a young driver.

Ms Entwistle was among a group of bereaved families who met MPs in June to advance the case for graduated driver licences.

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport previously said the government was not considering graduated driving licences but recognised "that young people are disproportionately victims of tragic incidents on our roads".

Lacey, 17, is learning to drive and is one of a number of students at the school who support graduated driver licences.

"I think it's so important that we're mature enough to know what we're being held responsible for and who we're looking after," she said.

Fellow student Kaitlyn said the idea of taking to the road as a qualified young driver was "almost daunting".

"You could be the safest driver in the world but it's what other people are doing that impacts everything else," she said.

James, who has just passed his test, said he tried to avoid driving at night.

"There's a lot of people out on the roads that are speeding they're obviously drunk sometimes as well," he said.

"It's quite scary to be out on the roads."

He added that he would be more cautious on the roads after hearing Ms Entwistle's story.

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