The mother of an Oxford doctor killed by a teenager in a high speed crash has said learner drivers should have lessons for at least a year.

Elizabeth Davidson, who moved a judge to tears last week with her written tribute to daughter Margaret, backed proposals from a road safety coalition that there should be a minimum period for drivers to be learners.

Dr Davidson, 26, who had recently graduated and lived in Kidlington, died when Nolan Haworth, 19, slammed into her car as he raced to court to answer an affray charge.

Haworth, from Banbury, had been driving at speeds of up to 80mph on the 50mph-limit A4260 near Deddington in a borrowed car with no insurance when he crashed into Dr Davidson's car as he overtook a lorry on the brow of a hill.

He was jailed for four years after pleading guilty to causing death by dangerous driving.

Mrs Davidson said she was not sure any change in legislation would have stopped Haworth from acting recklessly, but backed a proposal that people should learn to drive for a year before being allowed on the roads alone.

She said yesterday: "It perhaps might bring home to other young people, in fact other drivers, the dangerous weapon that they are handed when they get that little slip that says you are now a driver."

Mrs Davidson, from Hamilton, Lanarkshire, also hit out at the sentences given to people guilty of causing death on our roads.

She said the idea of her Witness Impact Statement, which so affected Judge Julian Hall at Oxford Crown Court last week, had not been to increase Haworth's sentence, but questioned why tougher punishments were not enforced.

She told BBC Radio Four's Today programme: "I understand the top sentence for this sort of crime is 14 years. I don't think anyone has ever served 14 years, and I wonder why in fact we are at a situation where no-one actually ever serves or is ever even sentenced to that amount of time."

Haworth, of Ribston Close, Banbury, had no licence and crashed into Dr Davidson's car as she made her way home to Oxford from a night shift at the Horton Hospital, Banbury.