On the 9th of August, we came together at the RoadPeace Wood in the National Memorial Arboretum for a deeply moving Ceremony of Remembrance. As part of remembering together, we are sharing this speech from the ceremony so that its message may continue to be heard and felt. Here are Kates‘s words:
Hello. My name is Kate, and I coordinate the RoadPeace National Injured Group – which is a supportive, safe space for people who have been injured in road traffic collisions, some of the attendees were pedestrians when injured, some on bikes and some, like me, injured whilst in a car.
My crash was on the 1st May 2020, this was lock down. There were 4 people involved, 3 cars, and a runner – all converging on one place at one time – remove any element from that trajectory and my crash wouldn’t have happened. I still find that so hard to process.
When I came around, in my car, sat next to a police woman, I checked myself over mentally, decided that I’d be patched up, sent home and my life would continue as normal. I handed my phone to the policeman stood outside my car and asked him to ring my son, Sam, tell him I’d been delayed and could he go around my house, take a baked potato out of the oven and feed the cats.
The reality was that I was very badly injured, literally from head to toe, life threatening they said. I had emergency surgery that night, I was in intensive care, had 2 more operations and left hospital 3 weeks later in a wheelchair.
In the years that followed, I had more operations, and more periods of recovery, and I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I actually might not seamlessly pick up the life I previously had, but that what had happened to me had been life changing, and what that actually meant. Even when I had people round me I felt that the experience had isolated me. I talked to my daughter, Polly, about finding a space where there were other people who had, had similar experiences, who I could relate to, who could relate to me. So, Polly did some research and contacted RoadPeace. Sometime later I was allocated a befriender, a person who had been injured in a traffic collision, had support from RoadPeace and had then offered some of their time to support to others. Those conversations with my befriender remain very important to me, and in due course I offered some of my time to support others and am proud to coordinate the injured group.
It felt to me as I went along my journey of recovery and settlement that it is a very complex place to be; it was like waking up and finding out that I was doing a degree in something I knew nothing about. I wanted to put what I had learned to good use amongst people who had similar experiences.
Today, I am here for everyone who has been badly injured in a road traffic collision, and I am also here to remember my brother, Richard, who was killed in a car crash on the 8th August 1991, aged 35. He was my older brother, an extraordinary person who had cycled across Australia and Indonesia. Time changes nothing, and I can still feel the acute shock and sadness of losing him.
I am here for my children who grew up without Richard in their lives, and my brother Bill, whose 2 siblings, Richard and I, were involved in serious car crashes.
And I am here for my mum, Pauline, who having lost her son to road death, would have so appreciated and benefited from the support of all that RoadPeace have to offer.
Updated on: 26 August 2025