There must have been 40 people in the room. The consultant went round all of us, asking everyone’s name, then he crouched down and said to me and my sister, ‘Unfortunately, we can’t save your mum.’
That was it. We had lost her.
My mum, Marie Cunningham, was incredibly fit and healthy. After losing my dad to cancer in 2011 she rebuilt her life, surrounding herself with friends, and always busy.
We used to phone to pop round and Mum would inevitably have a house full of visitors or be out and about somewhere with friends.
One of those friends was Grace Foulds, who Mum met at church. Grace had lost her son to cancer and she and Mum had bonded over their sadness.
On 30 November, 2021, they were walking home from a charity event when a vehicle driven by a driver named Glyn Jones hit them.
The injuries report was horrifying – it would have been quicker to list the catastrophic injuries she didn’t suffer. Mum died that night at 10pm; she was 79.
Grace, 87, died at the scene.
Initially, my family and I felt sorry for Jones – he was 65 and coming up for retirement and we assumed this was just a tragic accident for all the families involved.
But then we found out the truth about Jones – and his eyesight.
It was shocking – and it’s why we want a change to the rules.
During the investigation, it transpired that Jones had been told by medical professionals on multiple occasions over the previous decade that his vision was not good enough to drive due to a condition called severe bilateral keratoconus.
At the time he hit Mum and Grace, his eyesight was below the legal standard required to drive.
Jones plead guilty in December 2023 and was sentenced in 2024 to seven years and four months in prison.
It is likely he’ll serve around five years of that, with the rest on license. It does not seem like a fitting sentence considering he had killed two women and the fact that he deliberately chose to keep driving despite being told over many years by medical experts that he did not meet the standard required.
In April, an inquest into mum and Grace’s deaths – as well as those of two other victims killed by cars driven by drivers with poor eyesight, Peter Westwell and Anne Ferguson – called the UK’s system for licensing the ‘laxest in Europe’.
Now, recommendations set to be laid out as part of a road safety strategy by the government this autumn will include plans for those over 70 to undergo compulsory eye tests every three years or face a driving ban.
My family and I welcome these initial proposals, but they do not go far enough. As a family we want the government to understand that there is something fundamentally wrong across the whole system, not just drivers over 70.
The man who killed Mum and Grace was 65 years old at the time.
We believe every driver should undergo a mandatory eye test every 10 years, which is when licences must be renewed – in an ideal world, this would turn to once every two years at and beyond 70.
Assessment to drive should be completed by a registered optician rather than self-declaration, which is how the current system operates.
As it stands, opticians cannot share data with the DVLA yet a garage can tell them that your car passed its MOT and is safe to be on the road.
We need technology to use every lever available to assure us that people behind the wheel are safe to be there.
In addition, we want to see change brought about at the driving test level. When learner drivers go for their theory test, a mandatory eye test should be bolted on and driving instructors should be able to log into the DVLA system to ensure their student has been signed off.
The basic number plate reading test should also be scrapped as it’s open to all sorts of variables, like weather and time of day, that could skew the result.
It’s now been four years since we lost Mum and any changes to UK licencing law won’t bring her, Grace, Peter, Anne or any other road traffic victims back.
Yet we are trying to turn this horrific event into something that’s positive and inclusive. Too many people go decades without their eyesight being checked in relation to road safety.
Our message to all drivers is this: We have to earn that right and value your licence. And if it’s time to retire from driving, then you need to do so gracefully.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk.
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