THE fiancee of a young man killed while racing his car has spoken for the first time about the grief she has suffered since his death.

Nikki Lynch was a passenger in her partner's Renault Clio in January last year when it clipped a bollard and smashed into a garden wall, leaving an 80ft trail of wreckage.

The 23-year-old, from Blackburn, walked away from the accident in Livesey Branch Road, Blackburn, almost physically unscathed, but her boyfriend, 22-year-old Matthew Hannon, died at the scene from head injuries. Matthew's death, and his parents' subsequent calls for young drivers to slow down, triggered the Telegraph's Wasted Lives campaign.

Backing the campaign, Nikki, who still lives in the St Philip's Street home she shared with Matthew, said: "I would hate anybody else to go through what I have. As a victim of a car crash and as someone who has lost a loved one, I know how devastating a road accident can be."

The couple met at New Year's Eve 2004. Two months later they had moved in together and at Christmas they got engaged. They had visited their friend Steven Hayhurst on the day of the crash to discuss wedding plans.

Matthew was driving his new car, which he had picked up that day, and it was the first time Steven, who had also just got a new car, had seen it.

Nikki said: "We didn't know that Steve and his girlfriend had followed us when we left, but when Steve overtook us Matt put his foot down. It was because the cars were new. They were competing against each other."

Nikki remembers little about the accident, but in a cruel twist of fate her sister Becky was a few cars behind them. She did not recognise the crumpled car but saw Steven's girlfriend and stopped to help.

"She saw me with Matt slumped over me," said Nikki. "My mum's partner arrived at the scene and he heard the paramedics say that one was dead and the other needed to go to hospital."

Nikki spent five days in Royal Blackburn Hospital with severe bruising and a sprained back. She said: "I don't understand how we could have been sat so close and for him to die and for me to be all right.

"When I see the pictures of the accident, with my side of the car ripped apart, I wonder I survived."