A campaigner has called on the Government to clamp down on road crime, demanding it to be treated as any other criminal offence.
Sarah Hope MBE, a campaigner for incident support for road crash victims, previously launched a Transport for London instant support line, the Sarah Hope line, which will mark its 10-year anniversary on Monday.
Mrs Hope spearheaded her campaign after becoming a victim of a south London road crash in April 2007 when a drunk driver of a bus ploughed onto the pavement at speed.
Her mother tragically died from her injuries, while her daughter, Pollyanna, who was just two at the time, lost her leg and Mrs Hope endured severe injuries from the collision.
But now, the mother hopes to transform the tragedy into something positive for others, launching a campaign to encourage road crime is treated as “real crime”.
Mrs Hope told GB News: “Because we are victims of crime. But the Government doesn’t seem to see that. And people seem to see road crashes as inevitable.
“But they’re not. They shouldn’t be happening. People shouldn’t be driving criminally. And we’ve got to raise awareness of the trauma that road crime causes.”
The process of setting up the helpline took around seven years, with the campaigner adding: “When you’re affected by a road crash, it’s sudden, it’s violent.
Sarah Hope joined GB News this morning to discuss her campaign against road crime
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“You are trying to navigate the criminal justice system. You’ve got people coming in and out of your life. My daughter was in hospital.”
During Boris Johnson’s time as London Mayor, he asked if Mrs Hope had received an apology from TfL, to which she told him they had not.
She added: “He set about arranging a meeting that happened really quickly, actually. And at that meeting, they said they were terribly sorry about what had happened and I said ‘sorry must mean sorry, and sorry must mean change’.
“The language is very important. It’s the language for these things has changed and they are incidents. If somebody is killed by somebody driving, speeding, they’re on drugs. And it was drinking.
The campaigner met then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson in the aftermath of the tragedy
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“It was road rage. It just went crazy. There was a white van behind him honking the horn and he just plowed onto the pavement.”
She told TfL they needed a “voice of kindness” at the end of the phone to help victims like her and her family, offering support to the whole family, not just those involved in the crash.
“I had a lot of support from family and friends. And of course, I’ve got a wonderfully supportive husband, but some people don’t have that.
“That’s why I set up the line. There’s a lot of people in London from other countries. Their families are abroad. So it’s very important to help people. But prevention is the best thing.”
Mrs Hope hit out at the brevity of the sentences for road crime, without there being a substantial deterrent.
Christopher Hope and daughter Pollyanna
Piling on pressure on the Government, she declared the drivers “have got to be scared of being caught”, otherwise they risk thinking they can “get away with it”.
Directing her attention back on her family, she beamed at her daughter’s remarkable persevence, who has gone on to become a ballerina with the help of a prosthetic ballet limb.
But she also heaped praise onto her husband Christopher, the People’s Channel’s Political Editor, as well as her other children, Barnaby and Sapphire, through the challenging time.
On average, four to five people are killed on UK roads every day while hundreds more suffer life-changing injuries.
