Road crash victims are being forgotten and failed because of a lack of support, a charity has warned.

In 2023, 1,695 people died on Britain’s roads and a further 28,967 were seriously injured. In the last five years, neither figure has decreased significantly.

And behind each of those numbers is a grieving family, many of whom don’t have access to the support they need.

Road safety charity Brake says something needs to change and is launching a new Road Victims Charter in Westminster on Monday and urging the Government to back it.

The Charter calls for a number of measures to ensure that road victims receive the support they need.

These include a set of national standards on how the authorities should respond following an accident, as well as extending the rights of the victim’s code to those affected by road injuries, regardless of whether a crime has occurred.

It would impact victims like Ciara Lee, who lost her husband Eddy in 2018 in a fatal accident. He was thrown from his motorcycle after being hit by a dangerous driver and died eight days later in hospital. Their son, Seren, was only two years old.

“When my son woke up and said, ‘Where’s daddy?’ “I said, ‘he’s dead’,” Ciara told Sky News at her home in Berkshire.

“I knew I had to be really determined with it. He was two years old, still in diapers. It was important for me to tell him “it was not your father’s choice to die”. It was out of his control.”

Ciara has since gotten her life back on track, but the trauma of that experience will never leave her.

“It’s really valuable for people to get the support they need. I managed to rebuild my life. My son is very happy. But there is a huge hole. The difference between normal people and those who have suffered a road death is that we carry this unimaginable darkness with us. It’s all the time and we’ll never shake it because we know someone should be here.

Lucy Straker, campaign manager at Brake, said the charity’s ultimate aim was to reduce road deaths to zero.

“No progress is being made in reducing road deaths,” she said. “And what we’ve seen in our National Road Victim Service is that the need for support grows and grows as well because it doesn’t just go away after a week or two weeks.

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“We believe that everyone who is bereaved or seriously affected by road traffic injuries should have access to trauma-informed support.”

In a statement, the Department for Transport said: “Every death on our roads is a tragedy and our thoughts are with the families of all those who have lost a loved one in this way.

“We are committed to reducing the number of people killed and injured on our roads and are developing a road safety strategy which we will be releasing more details about in due course.”

(c) Sky News 2024: ‘Daddy’s dead’: How road accident victims are forgotten and failed