'No-one expects to wave their son off and not see them again'

The mother of one of four teenagers who drowned after a crash is calling for tighter rules for new drivers.

Crystal Owen has started a petition calling for tighter licensing for drivers under the age of 25.

Her son, Shrewsbury College student Harvey Owen, 17, was found in an overturned, partially submerged car in Gwynedd on 21 November.

He was found with fellow students Jevon Hirst, 16, Wilf Fitchett, 17, and Hugo Morris, 18.

The teenagers, all from the Shrewsbury area, had failed to return home from a camping trip in North Wales.

An inquest opening heard they had been travelling in a motor vehicle along the A4085 when it left the road.

The silver Ford Fiesta was found upside down, partially submerged in water.

Ms Owen said living without Harvey was "unbearable" and she had hardly left the house since his death.

"There's a huge part of our lives that's never going to be the same again.. it's a just a void that basically nothing can fill," she said.

After she lost her son, a friend told her about graduated licences which she described as a "lightbulb moment" and questioned why they had not been introduced in the UK.

If introduced, the changes would include safety measures such as a minimum number of driving lessons covering 40 hours and all road conditions, not carrying passengers up to the age of 25 and restrictions on night driving.

No-one expects to wave their son off and never see them again, she said.

"You only need to look at some basic statistics around graduated licences and how they are proven for decades to work to realise that a huge percentage of young people's lives could be saved if it was put into place."

Crashes were more likely to happen on a rural road and with passengers, she said.

One in five new drivers crash within their first year, she said, so improved safety measures were very important.

"They [newly qualified drivers] are four times as likely to crash with passengers so it's giving them, while they're building up their confidence and experience on the roads, it's giving them that time before they are on the roads.

"At the end of the day, it's a lethal weapon in their hands at a very young age, so it's just making sure people are safe."

More than 12,000 people have signed the petition.

Lucy Straker from road safety group Brake, said the licences were a way to "safeguard drivers moving from not being qualified to being qualified".

"They get behind the wheel of a car and its a powerful engine, powerful vehicle, machinery basically, and what we're asking for is more safeguards to help that transition period between not qualified and qualified," she said.

"We know that one in five drivers crash within the first year of being a qualified driver."

She said Canada and New Zealand have implemented similar systems and they had been shown to reduce the number of road casualties within that age group it was designed to safeguard.

Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]