Heartbroken wife's 'lifetime bans' plea for dangerous driving as data reveals worst roads in Leeds for crashes

Jan Vekaria’s husband Parv was killed in April 2022, after Leeds window salesman Daniel Midgley ignored a series of warning signs and markings and caused a fatal, head-on collision.

The 26-year-old was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court last year to four years and eight months for death by dangerous driving.

Dad-of-two Mr Vekaria, 59, was driving on Hebden Bridge Road in Pecket Well when he was involved in the head on collision. He died 11 days later in hospital.

Now his wife, whose son is expecting her first grandchild, has called for a one-strike, no-nonsense policy for death by dangerous driving cases.

Speaking to the YEP, she said: “It feels like every time we have something to celebrate there’s a sadness because he’s missing out. The young man who went to prison, his family will get him back but we’ll never get Parv back.

“In a way it’s a privilege to be able to drive and I don’t think people should be allowed to drive again if they do that. If you kill someone then you should be banned forever.”

It comes as new data, obtained by the Yorkshire Evening Post through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted to Leeds City Council, has revealed the most dangerous roads and junctions in Leeds with the biggest number of collisions.

The city’s Regent Street - York Road flyover to Skinner Lane was named as the worst junction in Leeds.

To calculate the danger, the council used a ‘Rate/ 100 MVK’ measurement - the number of collisions per 100,000,000 vehicles travelling 1 kilometre on that particular road. It said the metric was used “to get a fairer comparison between roads of different lengths, carrying different volumes of traffic”.

The Regent Street junction recorded 177 crashes per 100,000,000 vehicles travelling one kilometre on that road, as there were a total of 33 crashes on the stretch of road between 2019 and 2023. Nearly one third (30 per cent) of the crashes occurred during the hours of darkness, while a further 24 per cent occurred on a wet or icy road surface, the FOI response showed.

Mrs Vekaria said she regularly witnesses examples of poor or dangerous driving that she fears is “getting worse”.

“You see it all the time [on the news] and it just makes me really angry and sad. Everyone seems to be in such a hurry, they go speeding past and then get stuck in the traffic a few cars ahead anyway,” she said.

“Every morning I’m driving to work and you see near misses. Don’t people realise that if you can’t see then you shouldn’t be overtaking. It makes me so frustrated because it doesn’t feel like it’s getting better but actually getting worse.”

In the new figures, Harehills Lane - Fforde Grene to Compton Road (164 crashes per 100,000,000 vehicles) and Tempest Road - Dewsbury Road to Beeston Road (139 crashes per 100,000,000 vehicles) were also named in the top three.

The latest data comes a year after West Yorkshire launched its Vision Zero, a bespoke strategy developed to improve road safety and eliminate deaths and serious injuries on the region’s roads by 2040.

A spokesperson for Leeds City Council said: “Since adopting the Vision Zero ambition in September 2022, Leeds City Council and its partners have undertaken significant work to promote, improve and enforce appropriate road use behaviour with the clear aim of making our roads safer.

“This has included new road safety schemes, a revised approach to safety camera deployments, greater awareness and learning to engage with all road users to encourage safer behaviour and shared responsibility.

“The statistics for the last 12 months are promising, showing a positive impact in terms of the numbers of collisions reducing, bucking regional trends elsewhere but we know there is much more to do if we are to achieve our ambitions.”

Up to 47 per cent of crashes recorded on Harehills Lane, which is currently the focus of a proposed £4.5m safety layout revamp, happened on a wet or icy road surface.

Leeds City Council recently installed average speed cameras on the A58M inner ring road, which follows the successful installation of average speed cameras along the A6120 Outer Ring Road and the A647 Stanningley Bypass in October 2023.

Road safety charity Brake, who supported Mrs Vekaria after losing her spouse of 34 years, echoed her calls for immediate change to laws and guidelines.

The charity is campaigning for a host of changes, including new speed limit reductions on roads, investment in vehicle safety and infrastructure, and funding.

Brake’s campaigns manager Luca Straker said: “The carnage on roads takes lives, devastates families, and causes life changing injuries. It’s completely unacceptable that people’s lives are cut short or changed forever as a result of preventable road crashes. It has to stop.

“Brake is calling for us all to act now and make sure that next year no other family or community has to go through this same experience.”

West Yorkshire Police currently offers an online submission form - called ‘Op Snap’ - that allows road users to upload video recordings showing instances of bad driving.

The recordings will then be reviewed by the force, to examine whether an offence has been committed and if charges can be pursued.

More than 10,000 clips have been sent into the force over the 12 months, a 26 per cent increase on the previous year. Action was taken against motorists in 71 per cent of the submissions, the force said.

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Alison Lowe OBE, the region’s Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, leads the West Yorkshire Vision Zero Partnership.

She said: “In West Yorkshire, we are working towards Vision Zero, which is our aim to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries on our roads by 2040.

“The partnership approach focuses on safe roads, behaviours, speeds, vehicles and an effective post collision response. At the strategy’s heart is the message that everyone has a responsibility to keep people safe. We must all work together to end the needless deaths and serious injuries on our roads, and the devastation they bring.”

Deputy Mayor Lowe’s sister Debbie was killed by a speeding lorry driver, and she has joined devastated families to call for the introduction of so-called Graduated Driving Licensing.

The system, in force in countries including Canada and Australia, introduces certain conditions on new motorists for a period of time after passing their test.

According to the Rac, it places restrictions on new drivers who have recently passed their practical test for an initial period of time.

The calls were backed by Mrs Vekaria, who said she’d seen it work first-hand, in practice while abroad.

She added: “We lived in Australia for a year and over there they have these graduated driving licences.

“They could learn to drive quite early but weren’t allowed to have passengers until a certain amount of time had passed and I thought that was a really good idea.”