Crash victim's mum 'won't stop pushing for change'

The mother of a teenager who died in a crash in Kent is meeting MPs to promote a campaign which would see young new drivers become subject to stricter rules.

Keena Entwistle, from Broadstairs, lost her son Ethan two days before his 19th birthday when the car he was a passenger in crashed into a tree.

Ms Entwistle is among a group of bereaved families who will meet MPs on Thursday to advance the case for graduated driver licences.

Campaigners want to extend the learner driver period, ban new drivers aged 17-19 from carrying "peer-aged" passengers for six months and make motorway and rural road experience mandatory during lessons.

Ms Entwistle said: "We hope that all the MPs we speak to will back us."

She said that the campaign petition, which had just over 103,000 signatures when first brought to Parliament in April, now has nearly 108,000 supporters.

"Our main hope is they [MPs] actually formalise and put graduated driving licences in place," Ms Entwistle said, adding: "I won't stop pushing until something changes."

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

"Statistics also show that young male drivers are proportionately most likely to have an accident in between the age of 16 and 24," said spokesperson Harriet Hernando.

A campaign by Ms Entwistle and other local residents saw Kent County Council introduce extra speed restriction measures around the site where Ethan crashed on Dumpton Park Drive.

Further efforts have been made to get a community speedwatch group up and running.

This went live in March, meaning there is now a police-issued speed monitoring device near the site.

The driver of the car Ethan Entwistle was a passenger in admitted to causing death by dangerous driving on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: "Whilst we are not considering Graduated Driving Licences, we absolutely recognise that young people are disproportionately victims of tragic incidents on our roads.

"We are already taking action to tackle this, including through our THINK! campaign, which has a focus on men aged 17-24 as they are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than other drivers."

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