Sister Seeks Driver Limits After Teen’s Death in 100mph Crash

Mia Pullen’s brother died in a car crash. The driver was Thomas Johnson. He was nineteen and speeding. Johnson inhaled laughing gas. Elliot was seventeen. Daniel Hancock and Ethan Goddard also died. They were both eighteen.

Ms. Pullen talked to The Independent. She stated the boys were not close friends and that they were out for a drive. Thomas Johnson lost control of the car.

Ms. Pullen signed a letter to the Prime Minister along with seventy-one other people who had lost siblings in crashes involving young drivers. The letter asks for Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL), which adds a transition for new young drivers.

Younger drivers are often in serious crashes. Those aged seventeen to twenty-four cause eighteen percent of fatal car crashes while driving only six percent of all miles. In 2023, nearly 5,000 people were killed or hurt in crashes involving these drivers.

Young men are at a particularly higher risk, being four times more likely to die compared to drivers over twenty-five. GDL exists in the US, Australia, and New Zealand. New drivers there can’t carry young passengers or drive late at night.

One US study suggests GDL is effective. Fatal crashes for seventeen-year-olds fell sixty-one percent between 1996 and 2016 and eighteen-year-old fatalities dropped fifty-four percent.

Ms. Pullen believes GDL would have saved her brother and states that such rules are needed as part of learning to drive. She also notes that GDL impacts Johnson, who now lives with what he did.

The government is not including GDL in its road safety plan, with a Minister who had previously supported a bill for it now exploring other options. This is to be done without wrongly punishing young drivers.

The letter responds to this change, questioning the fairness for dead siblings. Clara Greenwood also signed the letter; her sister Alice died in a crash caused by an eighteen-year-old driver who sped in a convoy of teen drivers.

Sellers and his passenger both died, and four other teens went to prison. Clara says GDL would have saved lives and prevented her family’s pain, plus that of the other family involved.

Road safety groups in Britain support GDL. The AA backs it, as does the fire chiefs council now.

The DfT says all road deaths are tragic and recognizes that young people are victims. Still, they are not considering Graduated Driver Licensing at this time but will continue to explore other options.