AS every parent knows, you never stop worrying about your children, even when they're grown up.

And when they reach a certain age, the biggest worry of all for most of us is what they are driving and how they are driving it.

If it's a daughter rather than a son, the more pressing questions might be: whose car is she getting into tonight and will she be safe?

I have been through this parental rite of passage twice with boys who are now well into their 20s.

One of my newsroom colleagues is going through it now with her 17-year-old daughter, who is just learning to drive.

The greatest tragedy that can befall a parent is to lose their child.

Sadly, this has been the experience of too many families in the past 12 months. And in a violent and shocking way. In a car crash.

Which is partly why we have launched a campaign called Too Young To Die. The message is a stark one, but then so is the reality behind it.

It's the reality that sometime in the next few weeks, a police officer will knock on a door to tell a mother or father that their son or daughter has been killed.

The message of Too Young To Die is overwhelmingly about education and, as the slogan implies, it is mainly aimed at young drivers, for very obvious reasons.

But not all of the 17-25-year-olds killed on the road last year died at their own hands. Some lost their lives because of the actions of older and more experienced drivers. Younger drivers may be the target audience of this Daily Echo campaign, but it has a warning for all of us.