THE family of a trainee teacher from Llandevaud who was killed in a car crash aged just 21 have been praised in Parliament for their work raising awareness of road safety since the tragedy.

Rhiannon Smith died six days after the crash on the A48 near her home in March 2017.

Since then her family have campaigned for better road safety measures to avoid anyone else having to go through the same tragedy, and set up the Rhiannon Jade Smith Memorial Trust in her name.

And, speaking during a debate on road safety in Parliament last week, Newport East MP Jessica Morden praised Miss Smith's family.

"I want to pay tribute to them for the way in which they have bravely and relentlessly campaigned ever since for measures to make our roads safer, to prevent such events from happening to other families," she said.

She also applauded the trust, run by Miss Smith's parents Dr Julian Smith and Gill Smith, for arranging a road safety conference at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport last month, which was attended by more than 100 people.

"Experts who attended included Rod King, from the 20’s Plenty For Us campaign, which advocates the potential benefits of default 20 mph speed limits in urban and residential areas, except where it makes sense to retain 30 mph speed limits.

"My Welsh Assembly colleague, John Griffiths, is campaigning on that with the Welsh Government, and it was the subject of a recent debate. Gwent police Chief Inspector Martyn Smith, who is responsible for our roads policing, and police and crime commissioner Jeff Cuthbert, spoke about how they are tackling alcohol and drug driving as well as those who use their phones behind the wheel."

Addressing transport minister Jesse Norman, she added: "We talked about the need for a dedicated road collision investigation branch, similar to those that investigate rail, maritime and air accidents, which would look at road accident data, analyse incidents and spot any trends, to identify solutions.

"I know that the Smith family would like me to raise that specifically with the minister today. Obviously, it would not replace the work of the coroners and police, but it would work on top of that, to analyse trends, and would have the potential to save more lives."

She concluded: "We are clearly not making the progress on road safety and fatalities that we should expect as a nation. The government’s projections show an increase in local traffic of up to 50 per cent by 2040, so clearly we must do more and collaborate better to make roads safer."

In his response to the debate, Mr Norman said the government was trialling a number of different approaches to road safety "to try to get at the root of what is clearly a hard problem".

"Earlier this year the prime minister announced a £480,000 partnership between the police and the RAC Foundation to trial the new approach to investigating road collisions, along the lines of the road collision investigation branch mentioned by (Ms Morden)," he said.

"It is also important to note the £350,000 competition run by PACTS (the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety) to provide police forces with the next generation of mobile breathalyser equipment. If that is being adopted in Scotland as well, we can be delighted, because that is a source of improvement."

For more information on the Rhiannon Jade Smith Memorial Trust visit tinyurl.com/yarj7pyu