IT is ten years since Gary Hutchinson lost his life in an horrific crash on the A66 - but for his grieving mother, the pain just won't go away.

Ada Hutchinson's torment is compounded each day by seeing her husband, Frank, leave home to travel up and down the killer cross-Pennine road.

Gary died at the age of 25, after his minibus collided with a car as he drove a group of friends home from a Newcastle United match.

Last night, following the Government's announcement, Mrs Hutchinson, of Meadowfield, County Durham, said there should be no delays to hinder the vital work.

Praising The Northern Echo's campaign, she said: "This is something I have wanted to see for a very long time. It is nice to know that something is going to be done and all your hard work has been appreciated.

"Having personally suffered a loss on the A66, it is nice to know other people will be saved from going through this. It has been ten years but it gets no better."

The road's death toll is horrendous enough in itself, but with every life lost comes unimaginable anguish for the victims' husbands, wives, partners and children.

One of the most harrowing stories was that of pregnant mother-of-four Sutinder Kaur Singh, who died of multiple injuries after a head-on crash near Bowes, in February 1998.

The 29-year-old was returning home to Middlesbrough with her family from a holiday in the Canary Islands when tragedy changed the course of their lives forever.

Their car collided with another, leaving the whole family - including children aged two and three - with terrible injuries.

The first motorist on the scene later told an inquest: "I got out with my wife and she turned to me and said 'Oh my God, I can hear children screaming.'"

The lives of Rod Hall and his family were changed forever on a June night two years ago.

Their Land Rover was involved in a head-on collision with a sports saloon on the A66 near Temple Sowerby, splitting with the force of the 100mph impact.

Both Mr Hall, teenage son Matthew and toddler Jethro, were spilled out on to the road and grass verge.

His wife, Lorraine, was knocked unconscious, bleeding heavily from a deep laceration which almost severed her thumb, while baby Alfie was trapped beneath his car seat in the mangled wreckage.

Jethro's twin brother, Noah, was also inside the Land Rover but, miraculously, all of them survived - saved by a passing doctor and a team of Army medics who happened to be driving by.

Two years on, at their home in Reeth, they are still trying to put the near-death experience behind them.

"It is something I will never be able to adequately describe," said Mr Hall. "I can remember the children bleeding and screaming and lying there being treated by the roadside. God knows how we are all still here today, but I believe something - someone - was watching over us."

Indeed, the family home in tranquil Swaledale is decorated with pictures and knick-knacks which reflect the family's deep sense of faith.

The Halls welcomed the news that the A66 is to be upgraded - but they won't be rushing back to drive on it in a Volvo bought to replace the Land Rover. "We have only driven the road once since, and that was for the TV programme on Britain's worst roads," said Mr Hall, a musician, who is still undergoing treatment for a shattered jaw.

''We may consider it if it was a dual carriageway but, even then, it would be slowly."