Mrs Cairnduff's popular 15-year-old son, Mitchell, was killed on February 10 last year when a car in which he was a passenger collided with a taxi in Ferntree Gully Rd, Wheelers Hill.
The Mitsubishi Lancer was driven by a P-plater and, along with Mitchell, two 16-year-old boys were also passengers in the car.
When speaking to the Leader last week, Mrs Cairnduff welcomed the new laws, which will restrict P-plate drivers from carrying more than one passenger aged between 16 and 21 for the first year of their licence.
She said the laws, which come into force on July 1, were too late to save her son's life but could help prevent other families from suffering the Cairnduffs' pain.
''I think it's fantastic and should have been done years ago and many young lives would have been saved,'' she said.
''I've got two other children to get on the roads and things have got to change.
''I would hate for anyone to have to live the way I live.''
Last weekend, Mrs Cairnduff, husband Brian, son Grady, 9, and daughter Kelsie, 12, chose to mark the first anniversary of Mitchell's death with a barbecue for 100 family and friends to celebrate his life.
This Thursday two men will face charges in Melbourne Magistrates' Court relating to the crash.
Mrs Cairnduff last year joined support and lobby group Working Against Culpable Driving. She said she would push for driver education to be introduced in schools and further changes to laws on P-plate drivers and high-powered vehicles.
''We've got to get it through the heads of these young drivers that a car can be turned into a weapon if used the wrong way,'' she said.
Glen Waverley Acting Sen-Sgt Ross Graham said police would increase the number of routine checks on P-plate drivers once the new laws came into effect.
IF he's not too busy with training or court appearances, I would like to take Geelong star Steve Johnson on a journey of discovery near my home in suburban Melbourne.
We'd travel down a mundane main road and stop on a corner nature strip next to an intersection. I'd point out the large gum tree that has scrawled on it in felt pen, "Mitch RIP".
The black ink is fading now and soon all that will be left is the memory of the mayhem on this spot in February last year, which saw the death of 15-year-old Mitchell Cairnduff.
I'll never need a reminder of what happened on the night Mitch jumped into a car, no doubt expecting the ride of his life - a car police estimated was travelling at 120km/h in an 80km/h zone before it ploughed into a taxi carrying three passengers.
Maybe, though, it might help Johnson next time he thinks about gunning his car through a 50km/h zone at 128km/h, as police allege he did in Geelong last week.
Maybe he could try to envisage my nightmare of seeing injured teenagers, including my stepson, strewn on the ground; the sheer horror as I watched one young bloodied victim convulsing violently while being loaded into an ambulance. Then, worst of all, the howls of grief into the night sky as the ambo covered Mitch's face with a white sheet and wheeled his body away.
I do wonder, though, as Johnson deals with his public outing as just another hoon with an impounded car, whether he would take it all in.
We're aware last year's Norm Smith medallist is a brilliant footballer, but we've also known for some time he's a painfully slow learner when it comes to living life within acceptable parameters.
Successive arrests for public drunkenness, the most recent of which led to him being suspended by his club and absent from the first five matches of the 2007 season, point to a problem.
But it is small beer, so to speak, when set against his latest offence, which displays a chilling disregard for his community.
Meanwhile his club has to confront the harsh reality that the responsible course of action is to sack him. Indeed, there are many who believe that as soon as his offence was discovered, his backside shouldn't have hit the door on the way out of Skilled Stadium.
It is much more complicated than that, though. As much as players complain about the burdens of stardom, it usually provides immunity from proper punishment for serious transgressions.
Tony Lockett could deck the chief executive at St Kilda and survive. So, too, did Wayne Carey after pleading guilty to sexual assault.
And there was never a question of Alan Didak leaving Collingwood after his notorious escapade with Christopher Wayne Hudson last year.
Greatness provides absolution for a multitude of sins at most football clubs. And, although it claims to have a higher set of values, Geelong showed it was no different to the rest when it announced Monday Johnson would not be sacked.
Only last week, Geelong vice-president Gareth Andrews was lauding his club in a newspaper article.
"The Cats have built a culture, from the top down, where everybody understands what it means to represent the club and its values. Steve Johnson learnt the hard way, but what a wonderful lesson and result," Andrews wrote.
Two days later we discovered Johnson had done nothing of the sort. Indeed, he'd reverted to type, as usually happens.
If the club does the same thing, and acts in self-interest, so be it. Just spare us the noble pretension next time.
It would be nice to believe the message might get through to Johnson one day.
Sadly, though, he seems as impervious to it as the arrogant young man I saw gunning his red sports car past Mitch's gum tree yesterday.
