‘My child would still be here if graduated driving licences were the law in the UK'

Telegraph

07-05-2025

'Everyone in our [campaign] group,' says Crystal Owen, 'would still have their child here if this law was in place.' She's discussing rules governing young, newly qualified drivers. Currently in Great Britain, there are no special rules. A 17-year-old passes his test and can immediately get behind the wheel of a car full of passengers. This, despite all the devastating road death statistics, which Owen can reel off without a moment's hesitation.
Road traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for 15- to 29-year-olds worldwide. In Britain, young drivers were involved in around a fifth of all fatal or serious collisions in 2023. Male drivers aged 17 to 24 are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than drivers aged 25 and over.
These are government figures – and Owen, along with other bereaved parents in the Forget-me-not Families Uniting campaign group, hopes they'll finally prompt action on restrictions for young drivers.
Among the supporters of this campaign are mothers Toni Purcell and Juliet Seccombe. Purcell's son Harry, 17, and Seccombe's daughter Tilly, 16, both died near Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire, alongside Frank Wormald, 16, in April 2023 when the Ford Fiesta they were travelling in crashed with a Fiat 500. The Fiesta's 19-year-old driver, Edward Spencer, had passed his test just six weeks earlier. In March this year, he admitted causing his passengers' deaths by careless driving.
Owen's son Harvey died the same year, aged 17, while travelling in a car driven by a friend who had passed his test six months earlier. Owen, 40, from Shrewsbury, is sure he would still be alive if a graduated driver licensing (GDL) system had existed.
This system could mean that for the first six months after passing their test, or until they turn 20, new drivers would be banned from carrying passengers aged 25 or under, unless accompanied by an older adult. Owen's Change.org petition, calling for GDL for newly qualified drivers aged 17-19, has attracted more than 100,000 signatures, meaning the Government must respond. A year and a half after losing her 'kind-hearted' son, the second oldest of her four children, she is determined to prevent more tragedies like hers.
She had never previously worried about Harvey coming to harm in a car, and was more concerned for his safety on his pushbike. A laid-back boy who loved music, artwork and poetry, he had recently started at a sixth-form college and, as far as his mother knew, had no friends with driving licences. She didn't know his friend Hugo Morris, 18.
When Harvey told her one weekend in November 2023 that he was going to stay at a friend's grandfather's house, Owen had no reason to doubt him. He said his friend's father would be driving them. What she didn't know was that the boys also planned to go camping in Snowdonia. Harvey had only packed a tiny rucksack – inside were his poetry book, a thin jacket and flat leather shoes. Hardly the kit you'd take camping in Snowdonia in November.
'I certainly wouldn't have allowed him,' says Owen.
Before Harvey set off, he played the Johnny Cash song Ring of Fire on his guitar. 'He knew I loved that song and it was the first time he'd ever played it,' says Owen. 'I gave him a hug and told him I loved him. I said, 'I'm so proud of you, Harvey.' Not long after that, he left. I couldn't have had a better last meeting with him.'
Not that she had any idea then of what lay ahead. Only the previous week, Harvey had been talking of his plans for the future.
'He had dreams of either opening an Italian deli selling his homemade breads, or when he'd learnt to drive, getting a pizza van and going to all the festivals to sell his pizza,' says Owen, a business owner. 'He had his whole life mapped out.'
The first part of her son's trip seemed to follow the lines he had told her it would. He sent her pictures of the view from his friend's grandfather's cottage in Harlech, north Wales, when he arrived.
The morning after, he sent her a picture message of the view, not long before climbing into the car with Morris at the wheel and his long-time friends Jevon Hirst, 16, and Wilf Fitchett, 17. By the evening, Owen started to worry. She had sent her son a funny video message that had not been received.
She rang friends of his and his older sister, who was away at university. They all assured her she was fretting needlessly, telling her, 'It's Wales, there's no [phone] signal.'
Her partner reassured her too. Harvey would be fine, he said. If anything had happened, she would have heard about it by now.
She allowed herself to believe this until the next day, when she received a call from Jevon's mother, who mentioned the word 'camping' and asked if she had heard from the boys.
That was when Owen started to panic in earnest. A friend of hers had died on Snowdonia. She called the police immediately.
'I was an absolute nervous wreck, I was so worried,' she says. 'But they just kept saying, 'No, don't come to Wales, just stay by the phone. If you come here you're not going to have any signal.''
She didn't sleep a wink that night, and just sat there calling the police every 30 minutes to ask for news. When dawn broke, she and her partner drove to Wales, where the police were searching.
Arriving in Snowdonia, Owen was hit by the icy cold and a sense of dread. 'I just went into absolute panic,' she says. 'I thought, 'This is so vast, how are we going to find them?''
A series of false sightings sent her and her partner driving frantically here and there, following one lead and then another, until eventually the police called and asked her to come to the police station. They had located the car.
She didn't know it at the time, but it had come off a rural road on a bend in Garreg, Llanfrothen, and landed upside down in a ditch full of water. All four teenagers drowned.
Owen struggles to recall much of what happened when she learnt at the station that her son was dead.
'Everything was echoey and I felt like I was having a heart attack, like the physical pain was just immense,' she says. 'I felt my hands were being squished by nails. They went white. I was in absolute shock. [My partner says] I was howling, 'It can't be Harvey!''
That night, she again didn't sleep. 'I was like a zombie,' she says.
For six weeks, she could barely leave her bed – except to walk to the church and make funeral arrangements. When she finally began to re-emerge, she spoke to an old acquaintance about losing her son. They told her about the GDL scheme used in Australia, where drivers must be at least 20 to hold a full licence. New Zealand and Canada have similar systems. So does Northern Ireland. But not the rest of the UK.
It was a moment of revelation that set Owen on her current path. 'I was horrified,' she says. 'I couldn't believe it when I found out they had debated [this issue in Parliament]. I thought, 'If only they had done something. How on earth can they be faced with so much evidence and nothing be done?''
Exasperated, she points to the weight of expert opinion behind GDL systems. Brake, the road safety charity, has long called for the adoption of a progressive licencing system in the UK, to allow young drivers to develop skills and experience gradually while being less exposed to danger.
'Without these kinds of measures, young drivers will continue to not only put themselves at risk, but also their passengers and other road users,' says campaigns manager Luca Straker. 'This is an important public health concern, not a problem with young drivers. Where this has been implemented in other countries, there have been significant reductions in death and serious injuries on the road.'
The charity is urging the Government to include these measures in its forthcoming Road Safety Strategy, which has a stated aim of ensuring the UK's roads remain among the safest.
In January, MPs held a debate on road safety for young drivers. They discussed the idea of bringing in new restrictions to bring down deaths. The debate was attended by members of Forget-me-not Families Uniting, all of whom have lost loved ones in crashes involving young motorists. But the Government says it is not considering introducing a GDL system.
'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,' says a Department for Transport spokesman. '[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.'
This isn't enough for Owen. She says losing Harvey has 'ruined our lives' and is determined to continue the fight, for the sake of other children including her own. Harvey's little sisters, aged six and four, sleep with a photograph of him by their bed.
'They can't understand the death, they don't understand what's happened,' says Owen. 'We can't make sense of it, never mind them.'