A grieving mother has made an impassioned plea to young people after her only child became the Island's eighth road fatality of the year yesterday - the second in less than a week.

Lloyd Mitchell Dellano (Stiff) Burch, 24, died of head injuries after he attempted to overtake a car in Somerset in the early hours and collided head on with a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction.

His mother Deborah Burch admitted that her son, who was known as Dellano, did ride fast on the roads and said she had repeatedly urged him to slow down.

And she revealed how he had been involved in road accidents before - one of which was serious two years' ago when he sustained a fractured skull.

But yesterday, the distraught mother said although it was too late to save her own beloved son, she wanted to take this opportunity to urge other young people to drive more carefully on the roads.

Her son was the second person to die on the roads in less than a week. Six-year-old Tyaisha Cox died last Friday after being knocked down as she used a pedestrian crossing to make her way to summer day camp in Warwick.

“I want to have a wake because I want to tell all of his friends one on one how important it is not to speed,” said Ms Burch.

“Dellano is not here to tell the story, so we have to do it for ourselves. Young people think it won't happen to them, but now look, my son is gone. He's not coming back. It's too late for him, but perhaps we can save someone else.

“They must stop speeding, they must drive more carefully, and they must wear their helmets properly. Something needs to be done to stop these road accidents.

“The Police really must enforce the law. I know it's annoying when the Police stop people, but they have to enforce the law. It is the only way.”

The mother said she had also feared that her son did not fasten his helmet properly, either, because although the strap was fastened, it was often so loose he was able to slip out of the helmet without untying it.

“He did not unfasten his helmet - he just used to lift it over his head,” said his mother.

“I don't know if that had anything to do with his death. All sorts of things are going through my head. You just don't think you will outlive your child.”

Ms Burch, of Woodlawn Road, Sandys, said she last saw her son at about 9 p.m. on Tuesday at home. She said she had believed he was staying in for the night and she went to bed soon afterwards unaware that he had later gone out.

It is believed her son went to Club Malabar in Dockyard on his bike with his friends and left soon after 3 a.m.

They were travelling along Malabar Road at Boaz Island when tragedy truck.

“A siren woke me up at 3.17 a.m., I think it was a fire truck going past, and literally a minute later, at 3.18 a.m. the phone rang,” said the tearful mother.

“It was a good friend of Dellano's, he said his name, but I didn't catch it, and I just remember him asking me if I was Lloyd Burch's mother, which I immediately thought was strange because everyone knew him as Dellano. “He said ‘there has been a bad accident at Watford Bridge and I don't think your son is going to make it'.”

Ms Burch and her mother Caroline Burch started to make their way to the accident scene, but then turned around when they saw the ambulance pass them in the opposite direction. Instead, they followed the ambulance to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

When they arrived at Accident and Emergency, some relatives and friends were already waiting and Mr. Burch was taken to the intensive care unit.

A few minutes later doctors told Ms Burch that her only child had died. When she went into ICU, her six-foot-one son lay peaceful and warm. “We all went in to see him and he looked so at peace,” she said.

“He just looked like he was sleeping. He looked perfect - there was not a scratch on his face. I hugged him and I think I tried to wake him up.

“It's been a nightmare. I still keep thinking I'm going to wake up.” Mr. Burch was a former student of Saltus Grammar School, Berkeley Institute and CARE Learning Centre, and had received a diploma in Marine Mechanics at the American Marine Institute in Daytona. Although he was not working, he had just received his peddler's licence and was about to start an importation company named Tri-Angle.

He loved to watch sport, hang out with his many friends and spend time with his girlfriend Jimeka Johnson.

“He was very intelligent and very loving,”said his mother.

“He would tell me he loved me and he used to always hug me. He had loved computers from being a small boy and loved to take cars and bikes apart and put them back together again. He had always been very good with his hands.

“He had a good sense of humour and was around the house a lot. I thought he was never going to leave home. I can't imagine what it will be like without him. I miss him.”

Mr. Burch's aunt, Dianne Burch, said when she first heard soon after 3 a.m. that her nephew had been involved in a crash, she presumed it would be like the others, that he would recover. “I said ‘Dellano is a cat with nine lives - he will bounce back'.”

But the young man's mother said: “Well, he has used his last life now. He is really dead and he is not coming back...”

A funeral service will be held for Mr. Burch at the First Church of God on North Shore Road at 3 p.m. next Monday, followed by burial at St. John's Church in Pembroke.

Police were called to disperse a crowd of more than 60 youths who were blocking the traffic at White Hill as they mourned the death of Mr. Burch last night.