When Lisa Evans crosses the road, she checks and double-checks her path. That’s ever since she was involved in an accident, which left her in hospital, with serious head injuries. It happened when she was returning home from work in Manchester. Lisa was only seventeen, but seventeen years later, it’s still a vivid memory. “It took a long time for me to get over it and it’s had an impact on what I do now. I’m paranoid when I’m crossing the road. I’ve got children of my own now and I don’t let them play out. My eldest son will be going to high school soon and he hasn’t got any road sense and I think that’s my fault.”

Lisa was crossing the road, when a man knocked her over when he was doing a u-turn bend. Lisa didn’t see him, and the driver didn’t see her. The car hit her with such force, that she went over the bonnet of the vehicle and was thrown up in the air, landing on the curb.

With up to 13,000 serious injuries and 1,000 fatalities every year due to road accidents, Lisa would like to see more done. “I’m a driver myself now and I know things have been put in place, such as not using your mobile phone and putting up speed cameras. But people just want to get where they’re going and they don’t pay attention to what’s around them. People need to be more aware when they’re driving and children also need to know the consequences.”

Lisa says she had a lucky escape.