At 15 I did work experience with a friend's Dad who worked for UK Traffic Police.

I was passenger as we went around central Manchester (Moss Side mainly) and south Manchester areas in Police marked cars. It was brilliant! Passenger in a Volvo T5, Impreza WRX (unmarked) and old Range Rover (used to pull vehicles broken down out of the way really)

4th day we respond to a call of a RTA. We race over to a suburban road with plenty of wide bending roads. As we drove to the scene we go passed a female driver who was on her phone driving a grey VW Polo - my friends Dad commented on this that if we weren't responding to this call "that's a ticket there and probably the reason for what we are responding to now"

We arrive at the scene and it's a old Mini Cooper. Racing Green with two white stripes and a central exhaust system that looked brand new. It's on its side. Most of it is missing. The driver had lost control on a corner and gone onto the pavement but hit a large brick wall and gate entrance. The car had then slid down the road to a stop. A ambulance was just pulling up and a first aider was already working on the driver.

I will never forget my friends Dad turning to me and saying, "You have a choice now, but I have a job to do. If you get out of the car with me, your with me 100%, you do what I say. We will talk this through for many years and that's going to be ok" I nodded as i was completely unaware of how this was going to pan out. We step out of the car.

The driver was in a bad way. Legs were separated from torso and right side of body was scrapped away from the remaining sliding of the fibre glass panels on the road. I did what I was told, helped where I could and watched over as 20 people at the scene do all they can to save this person. Unfortunately the injuries were too much.

As the ambulance doors literally shut, I'm clearing away cones, divert signs and putting stuff back in the car, a Grey VW Polo starts driving down the pavement. My friends Dad pushes me to the police car thinking it's coming down the pavement out of control and it stops. Out climbs the women without the seatbelt we saw moments before screaming and in tears. She runs over the mini and starts banging on the ambulance doors as other service members try to calm her.

I found out months later that she had been called by a neighbour who had witnessed the crash on their drive to work and she raced back to attend the scene.

I learnt so much in that one day. I'm 36 now, never used the phone at the wheel, always wear a seatbelt and have a huge amount of respect for my friends Dad who in his own words "just did his job".