A YORK teenager had bought a motorcycle only hours before he died on it in a road acident.

Seventeen-year-old Sami Safder had decided to give up road-biking after a minor accident earlier this year.

But the apprentice electrical engineer, of New Lane, Huntington, died when his red Suzuki motorbike collided head-on with a car on the A64 at Stockton-on-the-Forest on Friday.

His mother, Mrs Julie Safder, 40, said: "He had decided he didn't want to be on the roads any more and was going to stick to trail biking and he said he wanted driving lessons now he had turned 17.

"On Friday, he had been riding on his friend's farm at Sand Hutton and we think was riding home when the accident happened."

Sami's father, Mohammed, 50, said: "It's very hard for the family. It's unbelievable. I'm very sad I have lost my son."

Mrs Safder said Sami, a former Huntington School pupil who had been on day release at York College, suffered a bad injury to his back after a crash in June, which was still being dressed every day.

"I didn't want Sami to have a bike. His dad lost the use of his left arm in an accident in 1980, and we didn't want Sami out there.

"A couple of years later my brother was killed in a head-on collision in Germany. He was only 19. But there's just so much traffic on the roads now, it's even worse than it was then. This year there have been so many accidents with bikers.

"But you can't tell a youngster. Sami loved bikes, lived for them, so we bought him a moped, a 50cc bike in bright yellow, his favourite colour. That day (the day of the accident) he had bought a new one, but we don't think it was powerful."

Mrs Safder said her son, who worked at Nestl, was "full of life and fun, always up to something".

"He used to call me Queen," she said. "He went out that day full of life and energy, and it was the last I ever saw of him."

Sami's sister, Yasmin, 14, said: "It will be very quiet round here without him. He always used to come in waking everyone up, being rowdy with his mates, having fun. We are all really going to miss him."

Sami's funeral was taking place today at 3pm at Fulford Cemetery.

A German driver appeared before York magistrates yesterday to face a charge connected with the incident in which Sami died. Hans Joachim Heuser, 61, of Pulheim, near Cologne, was accused of careless driving. His case was adjourned until December 1.

Updated: 10:25 Tuesday, September 23, 2003