The 21-year-old Yannick Frijns from Geldrop died in 2016 in what is also called the app accident on Texel. She was hit from behind on her bicycle by a motorist who was checking his phone. After the loss of their daughter, her parents set up a foundation and are now visiting primary schools with an awareness campaign.
“Actually, I don’t want to be here,” says mother Lauranne Janssen one afternoon for primary school children in Geldrop Castle. “The reason is that she would still be alive.” Six years after the accident, it still makes her very sad. She hardly gets her daughter’s story over her lips.
“The death of our daughter Yannick is meaningless.”
Father Frank tells how he experienced the evening of the accident: “The accident happened on Texel. I was in Maastricht at the time when Lauranne called me and I immediately went in that direction. On the way I received a message that Yannick was being taken by helicopter to the university hospital in Amsterdam.”
“I arrived at the hospital at half past one. She was still alive then, but contact was no longer possible. She also died that night. That is indescribable. The journey from Maastricht to Amsterdam was the worst of all. my life. I just have 2.5 hours…” Then he falls silent. The event takes place in his head and that does a lot to Frank. “The death of our daughter Yannick is meaningless.”
“We are going to visit in group 8, because they are going to secondary school next year.”
But now it is six years later and there is the Yannick Foundation. Mother Lauranne: “We want to make children aware and hope that this will change their behaviour. That they also dare to address each other like: hey, what are you doing now?”
From the foundation, mother Lauranne and father Frank visit group 8 with various activities. In this way the children learn in a playful way why they should leave their mobile phone in their pocket while cycling.
Frank Frijns explains: “We have chosen to visit the children in group 8, because they are going to secondary school next year. Hopefully some of them will soon think: maybe we should not use that mobile phone on the bike for a while.”
“You can get distracted really quickly.”
Two friends of Yannick also help in Geldrop. Ellen Smeets: “We try to teach the children in group 8 in a fun way that you can be distracted really quickly.”
Nandi van Suylen: “I think Yannick would have found this very intense, because she didn’t really like being the center of attention. But I do think she would have liked it that this action is intended for every road victim.”
Father Frank can’t figure it out: “Every year there are 700 road deaths and 20,000 injured. That’s just 700 senseless deaths!” He understands that with this action they will not get the counter to zero, but he hopes that their message will at least stick with some.