‘For a few seconds, you almost forget, and then it hits you,’ Crystal Owen says after her teenage son was killed in a horror crash on their way to a camping trip in Snowdonia.
Harvey Owen, who was a passenger, and his three friends, Jevon Hirst, 16, Wilf Fitchett, 17, and Hugo Morris, 18, were all killed when their car overturned and landed in a water-filled ditch in November 2023.
Trapped upside down the partially submerged car took two days to finally be found by a passing refuse lorry driver on his round. With no visible injuries, a coroner ruled that the friends all tragically died from drowning.
She told Metro: ‘You’ll be doing your weekly shopping, and you go down the middle aisle and think, “Harvey loved his Japanese food, I’ll get that for him,” and then it hits you.’
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The past two years since losing Harvey have been ‘hell,’ she said and felt like living with ‘a constant internal panic attack.’
An inquest later found that the rear tyres in the car, driven by Hugo, a newly qualified driver, were only half inflated, which may have contributed to the loss of control at a sharp bend.
Despite living through every parent’s worst nightmare, Crystal has found the strength to campaign for road safety, including calling for a graduated licence for newly qualified drivers.
Crystal is now supporting the campaign calling for the legal limit for tyre tread to be raised after research by Halfords and Cardiff University found that around 1.2 million second-hand cars are sold each year with potentially dangerous tyres.
The research found that the tyres in these cars – around 1 in 6 – might not last until their next MOT.
When they were sold, many second-hand cars had tyre tread depth at or below the 1.6mm minimum legal limit.
The current law allows second-hand cars with a 12-month MOT and just 1.6mm of tread to be sold.
But these tyres are just 0.01mm from being rendered illegal, which is equivalent to just 33 miles of driving.
One dealership had an £8,000 vehicle with just 1.55mm of tread and a ten-month MOT available for a test drive.
Over 6,000 vehicles brought in for a service at Halfords in the last 12 months had less than 1.6mm of tread and were illegal.
Crystal told Metro that she sympathises with people looking for the most affordable option because ‘everyone is under so much financial strain these days.’
But she said the ‘safety of the vehicle you are travelling in is the most important thing you can spend your money on.’
Crystal said: ‘If you had to spend just an hour in my shoes now and feel the pain that I feel, you would just spend that extra money. It could ultimately save their life.
‘But people can’t correlate some story in the news to ever being them – I’d have never thought that this would affect us, and it was the absolutely last thing I ever worried about at that time.
‘There will always be the financial side of it over the fact that this could save their life, or the life of their kids or their mum.
‘You do just take the safety for granted being in and out of them every day, and no one expects to be in a fatal crash.
‘But having a car full of their friends – they are not considering things like tyres at that age. They are just so excited to get in that car and on the journey, they are not thinking about safety because they feel invincible at that age.’
Adam Pay, Halfords Garages managing director, said the law needs an ‘urgent rethink’.
‘The current rules for tread depth on cars sold do not put motorists’ safety first. Most motorists do not check tyres between MOTs and expect a car they have bought will be safe until its next MOT.
‘The fact that it is legal to sell a car with a 12-month MOT that, in a matter of miles or days will be illegal, at best lacks common sense and at worse could cost lives.’
Professor Peter Wells, director of the Centre for Automotive Research at Cardiff University, supported the call for the legal tread limit to be raised to 3.6mm or even 4mm.
He said: ‘Tyres are one of, if not the most safety-critical aspect of a vehicle. Once they approach 3mm, their braking and roadholding ability has already begun deteriorating noticeably and it only gets worse from there.
‘The difference in stopping distance between new tyres and ones with 1.6mm of tread is 75 meters if travelling at 70mph in wet conditions. That’s the difference between stopping in time, or crashing at 46mph. There is a question of whether 1.6mm should be road-legal at all.’
What kind of tyres are legal?
To be roadworthy, tyres must have a minimum of 1.6mm of tread. It can be measured by placing a 20p coin into the main grooves of the tyre.
If the outer band of the coin or most of the 20 symbol is visible, the tyre is too worn.
The safe tread limit is considered one of the most important checks for drivers, and it is a common question learner drivers face as part of the practical test.
As well as being dangerous, bald tyres can lead to a £2,500 fine and three penalty points for each tyre. If all four are below the tread limit, the driver could lose their licence and a £10,000 fine.
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