THOUSANDS of young people in Oxfordshire were hit with a harrowing road safety message this week as the Save Drive Stay Alive campaign returned.

Several students broke down in tears over the three-day series of events at the King’s Centre, attended by some 5,500 pupils at sixth forms and colleges.

Emergency responders working across the Thames Valley as well as a bereaved parent and a young crash survivor stepped up to tell their stories alongside a jarring video.

The annual partnership event aims to instil a sense of responsibility in young people aged 17 to 24 as they get behind the wheel for the first time.

Co-organiser Mick Clarke, the road safety manager for Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “We want young people to enjoy the freedom of driving.

“But making the wrong decision can be life-changing. We live in a 24/7 society now and we spend a lot of time rushing around; distractions are such a big thing.”

He added that firefighters, police officers and paramedics at an RTC were often shaken by the after-effects of what they had dealt with.

He said: “We are human and we have families with young children, and that’s why we get involved in these activities - to prevent them happening in the first place.”

In 2015 a total of 24 people were killed on the county’s roads, and 304 seriously injured - of which about a third, eight and 87 respectively, were young people aged 17 to 24 despite the fact that they make up only an eighth of drivers. Of 1,623 collisions reported in Oxfordshire 484 involved a young driver.

Matthew Arnold School student Holly Turner said the presentation had been ‘surreal’ and it had made her rethink rushing to learn.

She said: “It’s quite scary, and really sad. They said they see this week to week and the injuries were really gruesome. It makes me not want to drive.”

Among those to speak was Mags Wells, of Buckinghamshire, whose 18-year-old son Karl Nokes was killed in a horror crash on June 1, 2008.

He was in a friend’s car on a night out, going at 92mph in a 40mph zone when the driver lost control and crashed, and only one of the five occupants survived.

Mrs Wells said: “This is the real events of the worst night of my life.I’m on my sixth year of doing this because I’m so passionate. I will never know whose life we saved in the audience, but I’m sure we do.”