Victim’s mum speaks out at drink/drug conference
A mum of a drink drive victim who is campaigning for better alcohol education for all motorists spoke passionately at a conference in Shropshire on the subject recently.

Lynn Hilton, who formed Mothers Against Drink Drivers after her teenage daughter Nichola was killed by a drunken driver nine years ago, was a special guest at Telford Training Consultants (TTC) third annual conference in early November. TTC is involved in alcohol awareness education.

Other speakers included leading representatives in the fields of drink and drug driving, health and fatigue as well as a top Government researcher into driving problems.

The story of what happened to Mrs Hilton’s daughter - she was mowed down in a horrific car crash as she walked home with her father - is told in a graphic video reconstruction. Nichola’s story has been repeatedly shown to thousands of convicted drink drivers as part of a TTC run education programme.

TTC trainer Liz Lapper said that a total of 7,000 drink drive offenders will have seen the ‘extremely powerful’ video by the end of the year and that it always has an ‘incredible impact’.

People convicted by the Courts who then attend a TTC rehabilitation course are two times less likely to re-offend, according to Dr Rob Tunbridge, head of impairment studies at the Government’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL).

Drug driving is also becoming a serious problem with a large increase in the use of recreational and illicit drugs, Dr Tunbridge told conference delegates. "Cannabis is the main drug of concern, it makes up two-thirds of the drug problem," he said.

Drugs expert Graeme Clark told the conference that hundreds of thousands of people had driven while under the influence of drugs and drug related deaths had increased by 700 per cent in the last 20 years.

But the conference heard that more people died on the roads as a result of driver fatigue. Dr Louise Reynor, of Loughborough University’s sleep research centre, said that up to three out of every ten car crashes were the result of sleepiness - with such accidents tending to be fatal as they were often high impact with drivers unable to take avoiding action.

Jenny Feehan, training director for TTC, has developed educational programmes aimed at companies as a further initiative to broaden the public awareness campaign. Businesses wanting more information should contact TTC on (01952) 292246 or visit the website at
www.ttc-uk.com