A MOTHER who lost her daughter in a scooter accident 10 years ago has issued a safety warning to all road users on two wheels.

Cathy Loving’s daughter Jo was 17 when she was killed in an accident on the A37 at Wrackleford, north of Dorchester.

Cathy, from Frampton, was shaken to the core by the tragedy but has done her best to glean something positive out of it and every year she holds a fun day to raise funds to help promote road safety in Jo’s memory.

She said: “It’s about raising awareness that people on two wheels are vulnerable and to make them think. It’s not just motorcyclists and scooter riders but cyclists as well.”

Cathy says the fateful night of July 20, 1999, when she lost her daughter seems like ‘only yesterday’.

She said: “She was coming home at about half past nine or ten o’clock riding on her Vespa on the A37 when a car overtaking hit her head-on.

“He just didn’t see her and she died at the scene.”

She added: “It feels like it was still only yesterday but when you think about it 10 years is a lifetime. Now the 10 years has come up I think about what she would have been like now.”

Cathy said her campaign that was borne out of those tragic events is not about scaring people off scooters, motorbikes and bikes. It is about raising awareness of how to use and enjoy two-wheeled transport safely.

She said: “Jo was born around scooters and was around them all her life.

“When I got her younger sister Charlotte her first scooter somebody said I must be mad after what had happened.

“But I didn’t want to take her independence away, I couldn’t do that.

“We just want to make people as aware as we can of the dangers on the road.

“I just hope people take it on board and ride sensibly, and they are aware that there are some people on the road that don’t care about other road users.”