A road safety campaigner whose son was killed by a joyrider has branded Bradford one of the worst areas for bad driving in the district.

Carole Whittingham, who set up SCARD (Support and Care After Road Death and injury) after her son Steven, 27, was fatally injured in a crash involving a joyrider in Heckmondwike, believes schools hold the key to teaching youngsters how they can be better drivers.

"Bradford is one of the worst areas I've seen - along with Dewsbury," said Mrs Whittingham. "Having worked in Bradford for many years, I've seen drivers without seatbelts or those who think they can drive at excessive speeds in very built-up areas.

"Bradford, to me, is a very dangerous place to have children. People seem to have no idea about how fast they are allowed to go. When you drive into these little terraced streets, drivers are going at a rate of knots with no seatbelts on, oblivious to the fact that children could just step out from between two cars.

"Bradford has to become a safer place to drive - I can't lose my son because my son is dead but it could be somebody else's son next time."

Bradford Council's road safety unit said that in the Bradford district in 2002 there were 2,246 reported crashes/collisions, 3,381 casualties, 463 pedestrians - the lowest figure since the 1970s - 1,558 drivers injured and 871 car passengers injured. There were also 166 children injured in cars - a figure which is steadily rising, and 26 fatalities.

Mrs Whittingham, of Foxcroft Drive in Rastrick, is asking schools to contact SCARD to arrange workshops and visits to highlight the dangers facing youngsters on the roads.

"We would love many, many more schools to take up our offer and we will continue to recruit people who have been victims to help us in the hope that they will agree to go into schools to talk to people, because there is no substitute for personal experience," she said.

Ken Scarlett, senior road safety officer for Bradford Council, said the main problem with Bradford's drivers was speed, but he did not view Bradford as being worse than anywhere else.

"Inexperience is always going to be a factor," he said. "Younger drivers are many times more likely to be involved in a crash than other age groups. They are also likely to involve more than one person - they do tend to socialise in groups in the car.

"They do four per cent of the mileage but account for 20 per cent of casualties. In 2001 there were a number of tragedies involving younger drivers.

"I would like the DfES to more clearly identify lifeskills as essential and include in the curriculum a whole range of things which includes road safety. At the end of the day, the responsibility for road safety lies with parents, not teachers - parents are the best and the worst teachers of their children."

To contact SCARD, call the helpline on (01484) 401622 or inquiry line on (01484) 384702, or visit the website at www.scard.org.uk