New restrictions for young drivers demanded by siblings of teens killed in high-speed crashes

Mia Pullen with her brother Elliot, who she lost in a car crash - (Supplied)

“They never stood a chance,” said Mia Pullen, recalling the night her younger brother Elliot was one of three teens killed in a car crash.

In the court trial that followed it emerged the driver, 19-year-old Thomas Johnson, had inhaled laughing gas at the wheel and was travelling at more than 100mph on a 30mph road.

Elliot, 17, and Daniel Hancock and Ethan Goddard, both 18, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Ms Pullen told The Independent: “The boys were not close friends and were out for a seemingly pointless drive when Thomas lost control of his car.”

She is one of 71 signatories to a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer urging him to introduce reforms targeting dangerous youth driving as part of a road safety strategy being drafted by ministers. Each signatory lost a brother or sister in a collision involving a young driver.

The letter, shared with The Independent, calls for Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL), which would introduce a transition period between learner and fully-qualified driver for young drivers.

Mia says her younger brother Elliot could have been saved by different licensing laws (Supplied)

Motorists aged 17 to 24 account for 18 per cent of all fatal or serious car crashes in Britain despite only accounting for 6 per cent of all miles driven. Crashes involving young drivers killed or seriously injured 4,959 people in 2023, the latest year for which data is available.

Young men, who account for two-thirds of the total for their age group, are four times as likely to be killed or seriously injured compared with over-25s.

Campaigners hope new measures would resemble those in the US, Australia and New Zealand, where newly-qualified young drivers are not allowed to carry similar-age passengers or drive late at night.

A study in the US looked at involvement in fatal crashes for different age groups between 1996, when states began adopting GDL policies, and 2016. In that time, the rate fell for 17-year-olds by 61 per cent, and for 18-year-olds by 54 per cent. The number for 30 to 59-year-olds also dropped but only by 29 per cent.

Ms Pullen said GDL rules would have stopped her brother from going for the ride that killed him and the others.

“I signed the sibling letter on GDLs because I cannot fathom how the government believes they are not a necessary part of learning to drive as a teenager or young adult,” she said.

“GDLs would've saved them and would have prevented Thomas [Johnson] from having to spend his days in prison, living with what he has done.”

The Department for Transport has ruled out including GDL in the road safety strategy, despite roads minister Lilian Greenwood having last year supported a bill calling for its introduction.

Ms Greenwood told a Westminster Hall debate last month that youth driver safety will be part of the strategy but the government was “exploring options to tackle the root causes of the issue without unfairly penalising young drivers”.

“Where is the fairness for our dead siblings?”, asked the letter, which was written in response to the minister’s dismissal of GDL after The Independent revealed her change of course.

Clara Greenwood also signed the letter. She was six when her sister Alice, 12, was killed in a crash caused by an 18-year-old driver, Andrew Sellers, who was driving at a high speed in a convoy of five cars all driven by teenagers. The crash also left Ms Greenwood and her mother seriously injured.

Sellers and his passenger died but four other teenagers in the convoy were jailed for causing death by dangerous driving.

Clara was only six when she (right) lost her older sister Alice (Supplied)

“Alice had barely started high school when she was killed, her whole life was ahead of her.

“The teenagers in the other cars were all under 19 years old, and an 18-year-old and his 16-year-old passenger also lost their life: their lives were also ahead of them.

“GDLs would have saved both my sister and the other two young men, and would have prevented all the hurt that their deaths caused my family and their family.”

Road safety campaign groups have promoted GDL in Britain for years. In the past year, The AA and the National Fire Chiefs Council all backing it.

A DfT spokesperson said: “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.

“Whilst we are not considering Graduated Driving Licences, we absolutely recognise that young people are disproportionately victims of tragic incidents on our roads, and we are exploring options to tackle the root causes of this without unfairly penalising young drivers.”