Mum of Cliffe Woods road crash victim Natalie Warren calls for better road safety
by Nisha Chopra
A mother whose
16-year-old daughter was killed in a road crash 10 years ago is
calling for more road safety awareness.
Natalie Warren was thrown
from her moped near Cliffe Woods on January 9, 2002.
Since then, her mum Marion
Cornick, 64, has campaigned tirelessly for motorists to be more
safe when driving, and she is hoping that message will have more of
an impact alongside National Road Safety Week starting today
(Monday).
She says the consequences
will stay with her and the family for a lifetime, adding: "My
[other] daughter was 12 at the time, but it has affected her
because she now doesn’t want to learn to drive.
"She said if she has an
accident she’s likely to kill somebody and that is a lifelong
effect on her.
"Road safety is very
important, as a parent you don’t want to see your child go before
you, especially with accidents or crashes that could be
avoided."
Darren Collins, 18, of Sedley
Close, in Cliffe, near Strood, was fined £2,000 and given six
points on his licence for admitting careless driving after the
accident at the junction of Dillywood Lane and the B2000 Lower
Rochester Road.
Last year, 60 people were
killed on Kent’s roads while more than 500 were seriously
injured.
Kent Police’s head of serious
collision investigation, Martin Stevens, said: "A lot of people are
losing their lives on the roads and these are deaths that are
avoidable and unnecessary; and through more care on the roads we
can really reduce the number of casualties.
"There has been a reduction,
but we’re tending to see a rise in that number and that’s primarily
because the police are unable to sustain the amount of enforcement
and education because of public cuts and austerity
measures."
Mrs Cornick is also involved
in the Licence to Kill campaign, an education project aimed at
young drivers, but said it’s worrying if the money is not there to
educate new drivers.
She said: "No matter how much
you’re told you have to keep chipping away at the young drivers
because they have to take on board that the car can be a killing
machine.
"Even the 18 year old boy has got to live with the fact
that his driving killed a 16-year-old girl."
19/11/12
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