Each year, tens of thousands of people are killed or seriously injured on Britain's roads. For the families left behind, the collision itself is only the beginning of a long, confusing, and often deeply painful journey through the justice system – one in which their voice is too frequently absent.

In March 2026, Project EDWARD's First Friday webinar brought together bereaved families, a roads policing researcher, and a former Family Liaison Officer to explore what victim-focused justice actually looks like – and where it is still falling short. Their discussion offers a sobering audit of the current system. It also arrives at a timely moment: weeks after the government published its first Road Safety Strategy in over a decade, setting an ambitious target to reduce killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties by 65% by 2035.

At ARRM, we believe that strategy cannot be limited to preventing collisions. Casualties are still going to occur and we need to ensure that those affected are treated with dignity, informed throughout, and given genuine access to justice. This article draws on the Project EDWARD discussion to identify the most pressing failures, and the opportunities the new strategy presents to address them.

'I wanted to be heard': The lived reality of road crash bereavement

Angela Tyler founded the Ely Memorial Fund following the death of her only daughter Emma in a road traffic collision in September 2010. Diana Wood joined as a trustee after losing her 19-year-old son Tom in 2014. Both women spoke with quiet power about what victim-focused justice means in practice, and how far the current system falls short of that ideal.

For Angela, the experience was defined by isolation and confusion. In the immediate aftermath of Emma's death, she was surrounded by a 'frenzy' of officers and media, yet nobody explained what the investigative process would involve, how long it would take, or what her rights were. Her Family Liaison Officer (FLO) was committed and compassionate but was stretched across other duties and could not provide the dedicated presence Angela needed.

“I wanted to be heard. I wanted to be respected. I wasn't really told what the whole process was about. I felt as if I was a bit of a burden.”

Angela Tyler, founder, Ely Memorial Fund

Diana's experience was different in character but shared its essential shortcoming. Her FLO was warm, supportive and went above and beyond his official remit, yet was prevented by his line manager from returning after the funeral precisely when Diana needed him most. “It's all down to money – time and money,” she said. “But when you've gone through something so traumatic as losing a child, you need all the support you can get.”

Both stories illustrate something more systemic than individual failure. They reveal a model of victim support that is structurally under-resourced, inconsistently applied and, in too many cases, dependent on the goodwill of individual officers rather than embedded, funded professional practice.

The postcode lottery: Consistency as a justice issue

Perhaps the most consistent theme to emerge from the Project EDWARD discussion was the word 'consistency' – or its absence. Angela noted that families in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire benefit from dedicated FLO teams and the support of the Road Victims Trust, while in her own area of Hereford, no such provision exists. Raymond Williams, who spent over 20 years as an FLO and Senior Investigating Officer with North Wales Police, was unequivocal: “Regardless of where you live in the United Kingdom, you should get the same level of support from whichever police force operates in your area.”

This postcode lottery is not simply an operational inconvenience. When a bereaved parent in one county receives months of coordinated, trauma-informed support while another is left without a named contact days after their child's funeral, the system is not delivering equal access to justice. It is delivering a service that depends on geography, resource availability and luck.

Inspector Lavanchy's research underlines the structural dimension of this problem. He notes that roads policing occupies an ambiguous space within criminal justice: technically categorised as homicide when a death is caused, road deaths are nonetheless investigated with a fraction of the resources deployed in traditional murder inquiries. A murder in the West Midlands might attract a substantial dedicated team; a fatal road collision in the same area is likely to be handled by four or five officers who simultaneously continue their other duties.

“I'd never been able to work out why a murder is treated as more important than a road victim death to investigate. The resources given to them are totally disproportionate.”

Raymond Williams, retired SIO, North Wales Police

This disparity matters not only for investigative quality, but for victim experience. When the FLO is stretched, when caseloads are unmanageable, when there is no dedicated team – victims and families pay the price. The government's new road safety strategy, which explicitly assigns the Ministry of Justice a lead role on victims of crime including road traffic victims, must address this directly.

Restorative justice: The missing piece in roads policing

One of the most intellectually striking contributions to the Project EDWARD discussion came from Inspector Lavanchy's research into restorative justice (RJ) in roads policing. At the time of writing, his academic paper was the only article on Google Scholar relating to RJ which speaks volumes.

Restorative justice is widely used across criminal justice. At least 33 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales actively deploy restorative practices, either as an alternative to prosecution or alongside it. Evidence from Shapland et al. found 85% of victims satisfied with RJ outcomes and re-offending reduced by up to 27%. Yet in roads policing – an arena that generates more than 25,000 KSI casualties annually – restorative approaches are almost entirely absent at the serious end of harm.

Lavanchy's paper argues that this gap is neither justified nor inevitable. Prosecution is essential, and he is clear that criminal justice proceedings must take their course. But prosecution alone, without any opportunity for victims or their families to be heard, to ask questions, to seek understanding, leaves a profound void. As he writes, the victim rarely has an opportunity to take part in the rehabilitation of an offender for their specific offence. They must rely instead on general deterrence that may never reach them at all.

“Restorative justice does have a place in roads policing and it absolutely should be brought in. We should be giving victims the opportunity to engage in the process, perhaps meeting with the offender after they come out of prison.”

Inspector Andrew Lavanchy, West Midlands Police

Raymond Williams recounted a case that demonstrates RJ's power in practice. After a drink-driver killed a young man and was sentenced to imprisonment, the family wanted not just justice – they wanted to understand why. Raymond facilitated a meeting between the bereaved mother and the imprisoned driver. The outcome was not closure in any neat sense, but something perhaps more valuable: the recognition that her son had not been targeted, that the death was not personal, that the driver had not set out to kill. “You can't measure the impact of actually meeting the offender in person” Raymond said. That is exactly the kind of outcome a purely punitive system cannot provide.

At the same time, both the research and the discussion are careful about safeguards. RJ must never be used as a substitute for prosecution, and not every victim will benefit. Lavanchy cites evidence that those with very high levels of distress may be negatively affected. Crucially, engagement must be entirely voluntary. The framework must be trauma-informed, independently facilitated and properly resourced. None of those conditions currently exist as standard in roads policing.

The inquest gap: Prevention of future deaths and the 97% problem

One of the most striking interventions in the Project EDWARD discussion came from an audience member with direct experience of attending road death inquests. The statistics they cited are sobering: only 3% of road deaths lead to a Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) report from the coroner. In a system that is supposed to learn from tragedy to prevent future harm, this is a striking failure.

The Roads Policing Collision Investigation Authorised Professional Practice explicitly requires that lead investigators identify and share prevention opportunities identified through collision investigations. In practice, as the audience member observed, this very rarely happens at inquest. Officers focused on the criminal aspects of a collision – gathering evidence, supporting prosecution – are not systematically asked to contribute prevention thinking to coroner proceedings.

The knock-on effect is felt by families. Angela Tyler acknowledged that at the time of the inquest into Emma's death, she was too devastated to ask the questions she later realised were crucial. She didn't have an advocate, a navigator, a guide. “I wish I'd had someone to hold my hand along the whole process to tell me exactly what was happening, to help me prepare my questions, to make sure I was heard.”

The proposal raised in discussion – that independent road safety advocates should be able to attend inquests as interested persons, with the ability to ask questions about prevention – deserves serious consideration. It would not replace the role of families and their legal representatives, but it would introduce a dimension of systemic scrutiny that is currently absent: the question not just of what happened, but of how it could be prevented.

The government's new strategy does establish a Road Safety Investigation Branch, aligning roads with other transport modes that have long benefited from independent investigation. That is a welcome and long-overdue step. But the commitment must translate into real, investigative practice and not just the production of reports that gather dust.

The road safety strategy: Promise and the gaps that remain

The Road Safety Strategy is the most ambitious policy statement on road safety in over a decade. Its 65% KSI reduction target by 2035, its Safe System framework, its explicit recognition of the Ministry of Justice's lead role on road traffic victims, and its establishment of a Road Safety Investigation Branch are all genuinely significant commitments.

The strategy is organised around four themes: supporting road users, using technology, data and innovation, safer infrastructure, and robust enforcement. It is strong on collision prevention – on vehicle safety technologies, on learner driver reform, on drink-drive limits and on enforcement. These are the right priorities, and ARRM welcomes them.

But the discussion on Project EDWARD's First Friday webinar demonstrates that the strategy's ambitions will be hollow if the post-collision dimension is not given equal weight. Reducing KSI casualties is an essential goal, but those who are killed or seriously injured in the years that this strategy takes to bear fruit – the families who will receive a knock on the door or a call from the hospital – deserve a system that is ready for them.

That means embedding into the strategy's implementation plan a set of commitments that the current document does not yet make explicit:

• A national framework for FLO deployment, ensuring consistent, dedicated family support regardless of geography or force area. The postcode lottery is not inevitable – it is a policy choice, and the strategy should end it.
• A funded national pilot for restorative justice in serious roads policing cases, with proper safeguards, trauma-informed facilitation and independent evaluation. The evidence base from criminal justice is compelling; it is time to build the equivalent evidence for roads policing.
• A requirement that roads policing investigators contribute prevention analysis to coroner proceedings, with a target to substantially increase the proportion of road deaths resulting in Prevention of Future Deaths reports.
• Recognition of the victim impact statement as a strategic tool and not just a bureaucratic checkbox, with training and time for FLOs to support families in giving them the weight and detail they deserve.

A vision worth holding to

At the close of the Project EDWARD webinar, host James Luckhurst offered a summary that drew together the threads of the discussion: “a trauma-informed, coordinated, restorative and procedurally fair response to road harm, where victims' voices, needs and safety shape decisions at every stage.” The panel agreed it was a goal worth working towards.

That vision is not utopian. It is not demanding perfection. It is asking that people bereaved by road collisions, already dealing with the worst loss imaginable, should receive the same quality of support, the same quality of investigation and the same quality of access to justice as other victims of serious harm. It is asking that the system recognises what Angela Tyler and Diana Wood have spent years demonstrating: that the legal process ends, but the grief does not. That justice must reach beyond the sentence.