LLouis Thorold was “just a perfect, smiling, happy baby,” recalls his father, Chris. One of the five-month-old’s favorite toys was a stuffed elephant with crinkly ears. Her mother, Rachael, remembers how relaxed Louis was, sleeping easily and even nodding in her arms when she took him to his weekly swimming lessons. “We were so happy, we thought we had a lifetime of days like this ahead of us.”
Yet for eight weeks after her son was killed in a car accident that left her with catastrophic injuries, Rachael couldn’t even remember having a child.
Rachael Thorold was walking Louis in his pram along the A10 in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, on January 22, 2021, when a pensioner stepped into the path of a van, which ran onto the pavement as a result of the ensuing collision.
Chris buried his son while his partner of 19 years lay in a coma, not knowing if he would survive.
Instead of celebrating baby milestones, Rachael spent her first Mother’s Day in a neurological rehab ward unable to walk, read or write.
In August, 75-year-old Shelagh Robertson was found not guilty of causing Louis’s death by reckless driving due to insanity, with jurors believing her undiagnosed dementia had impaired her ability.
Almost two years after the tragedy, as Rachael continues her “incredible” rehabilitation journey, Chris explains: “The only real way to get justice was to try to make sure this never happens to anyone again.”
Children, specifically, have no say in road safety, he says, even though 50 are killed a year on UK roads and thousands more are seriously injured. Worldwide, the biggest cause of death for children under 16 years of age is death on the roads.
He Louis Thorold Foundation, created in memory of his son, intends to reduce it to zero. “It is a huge aspiration. But technologically, there’s no reason anyone should be dying on the roads anywhere in the world these days,” Chris says.
We tolerate pedestrian fatalities as a society, says Chris, the legacy of car culture reigns supreme promoted since the 1960s by manufacturers, road designers and motorist organizations. But this is changing, especially as our awareness of the environmental damage caused by cars has increased.
“Now it’s almost perfect storm conditions,” says Chris, pointing to Vision Zero, the multinational campaign to end road traffic fatalities, as well as the UK’s Twenty’s Plenty campaign, both promoted by the foundation.
Since Rachael left the hospital, the couple have moved away from Waterbeach, but successfully campaigned to improve the road system where Louis died.
“We wanted to start with something that we could actually accomplish: We lowered the speed limit from 50 mph to 40 mph and completely redesigned the intersection, installed an intersection and changed about two and a half miles of pavement.”
Since then, Cambridgeshire council has also recruited a behavioral psychologist to its team, who is billed as the first local authority in the country to look at how people interact in roadside environments.
And next spring, the foundation will push for the introduction of regular medical exams for older drivers to ensure they are fit to get behind the wheel.
There is obvious frustration and weariness in Chris with the way the criminal justice system has treated Robertson, who the family says has never expressed remorse or concern to them.
“This was someone who was clearly not medically fit to drive a car, but the system allowed her to drive it uncontrollably.”
“I’m not saying we should focus on demographics, but there has to be a way, once we reach a certain age, that there’s a periodic medical exam to say you can drive.”
Since Louis’ death, the family has heard from thousands of others who are concerned that the elderly relatives “have almost killed someone or themselves.”
For Rachael, who still doesn’t remember the accident itself, the trial brought some understanding. “I realized that he was a victim and there was nothing he could do. I felt so guilty and asked ‘why couldn’t I have done something?’” he says.
Nearly two years later, he continues to attend rehab therapy sessions almost daily. She still has trouble finding words and fatigue as a result of the brain injury she sustained in the accident.
“I didn’t think she would survive when this happened,” Chris says. “Her injuries from her were horrible and I never thought she would come home. But she challenged all of that.”
“She’s just an amazing person,” he adds. Her willingness to recover from her fuels her determination to prevent preventable tragedies from happening to any other family. “It’s still extremely difficult, but it’s not going to be the end of either of us. For Louis, we have to make him proud.”
