When Sharon Hilton’s son was told the car he owned needed more than £2,500 worth of repairs, she knew he was being ripped off.

The then 18-year-old had bought it from a dealership just three months prior, and wanted to take the car for a service and MOT to show his parents he could be responsible for maintaining his car.

Hilton, who works for Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership, said her son was ‘distraught’ at the thought of having to a pay a huge bill for repairs.

She said: “We had the car inspected elsewhere and there were no defects on the car and the vehicle hadn’t failed its MOT. But once I got involved they backtracked and said they were just advisories.”

Her son’s experience prompted Hilton to launch a project called Garage Anxiety, aimed at 16-19 year olds through Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership.

Hilton said: “The project came about last year after some work we did with Sophie Lyden, known as the Tyre Lady. She did some national research that found that young drivers avoided garages, due to the fact that they thought they would be ripped off, overcharged or have unnecessary work done on their vehicles because of their age and their inexperience.

“We were really fascinated by this research and decided to see whether this was an issue in Warwickshire. We conducted our own research within the county with young people and found that that was the case.”

The Garage Anxiety project, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, has now been delivered to 2,590 students aged 16–19, across six colleges in Warwickshire.

The project involves interactive sessions between young people and officers from Warwickshire Police, Warwickshire Fire & Rescue, the National Highways agency, Halfords Autocare and Phoenix Motorcycle Training.

They give hands-on advice such as how to check your tyres and what to do if they breakdown or are involved in a collision.

Department for Transport (DfT) statistics show 201 people were killed or seriously injured in collisions involving defective tyres in 2025, while MOT data suggests more than two million vehicles fail annual roadworthiness tests because of tyre defects each year.

Tommy, who is 16, owns a 50cc moped and attended the course at Warwick Trident College in Leamington.

He said: “They teach you a lot about how to maintain your vehicle and basic knowledge that I think everybody should know.

“I learnt about the tyre depth and how much you need on your wheels to keep it safe and legal. So for a 50cc you have to show at least three treads of depth on your wheel, but then when you move up and get a bigger bike you have to have one mil of depth and on a car it’s 1.6.”

Hilton said: “Garage Anxiety isn’t just focusing on the fear of being ripped-off, but the danger young drivers are putting themselves in by avoiding taking their cars or bikes to get repaired.

“We are starting to see an increase in serious and fatal injury collisions caused by vehicle defects. We have already seen a slight increase nationally and it tends to be tyres.

She added: “We’ve had students tell us that they’ve had warning lights come on on the dashboard and they’ve ignored them due to the fear of how much it’s going to cost them.

“They told us that they didn’t ignore an MOT because they realised that was a legal requirement but a service wasn’t, so that was what they tended to ignore and that’s quite scary.”