“HE’S a nice lad actually. He didn’t set out to kill Natalie that night. He has to live with that.”

Anyone who comes across this line in Sue Parker’s tribute to her daughter will already be aware of both the facts surrounding Natalie Rondeau’s death and the heartache that her mum still suffers almost four years on.

For those of us with children – particularly with teenage children embarking on a life behind the wheel – it’s very much a case of there but for the grace of God go all of us.

Sue has clearly forgiven the apologetic young man whose dangerous driving caused the death of Natalie, then 14, in King’s Park in November 2005.

It is doubtless forgiveness born out of an inability to rage any more against the sheer frustration of a life cut short.

What Sue wants – indeed what she deserves – is for no other mother to have to go through this pain. That’s why she is taking the time to address the new and soon-to-be drivers who will be in charge of their own safety and that of their friends in the future.

She wants them to recognise that they are driving a potentially lethal machine that in the wrong hands can result in the kind of constant agony many parents put up with.

The students who could have been Natalie’s classmates now understand what reckless-ness and lack of concentration can cause.

Let’s hope they take the knowledge on to the roads with them.