This image of a girl in a body bag is being placed on the back of Kent's buses in a bid to cut down dangerous driving by youngsters.

Using the slogan 'Reckless driving: cut it out before we have to cut you out!', firefighters are backing up the poster campaign with descriptions of their own harrowing experiences of attending car crashes involving teenagers.

Larkfield crew manager Peter Colwill recalled a fatal crash involving four young people near Maidstone three years ago.

"He said: "I'll never forget that shout; the car was on the roof and one of the youngsters was already dead. We had to cut him out of the car so we could get to another casualty.

"I was teaching my own 17-year-old son to drive at the time and for weeks afterwards I would wake up imagining Thomas's face in that smashed-up car."

Audio: Stuart Skilton talks about the poster campaign

Stuart Skilton, Kent Fire and Rescue's head of community safety, said: "We attend around 1,200 road traffic collisions each year.

"That's 25 per cent more than the number of house fires and results in around 10 times more deaths on the roads compared with fires."