There are little reminders of Koby Wellman everywhere: in his childhood bedroom, on the faces of young men, in passing cars and along the stretch of road where he spent his final moments.
The 20-year-old, a caring and boisterous teacher’s aide, died an hour away from his Bairnsdale home in regional Victoria on January 3 last year, when he swerved into oncoming traffic after a car in front slowed down.
“A big thing for me is seeing other siblings together on the street because I don’t get the chance to have that relationship with him again,” Mr Wellman’s younger sister Chelsea told AAP.
Police ruled out mobile phone use, leaving the Wellman family to imagine what happened in the fateful seconds before the crash.
“We don’t know whether it was because he was changing a song on the stereo, or turning on the aircon, or saw a bird, or closed his eyes for a second,” Ms Wellman said.
“We don’t know what caused him not to see that car, but obviously he was distracted.
“So now my little slogan is ‘eyes on the road for Koby’, because in a split second any distraction can be fatal.”
The pain of his sudden death lingers in his family and the small Victorian community, which lost other young people in crashes in the months afterwards.
Despite decades of improved technology making cars safer and high-profile education campaigns targeting speed, distraction, fatigue and drink-driving, Australia’s road toll is steadily rising.
National statistics show there were 1194 road deaths last year, an increase of 5.8 per cent from 2021.
In the year to April there were 1204 deaths, also a jump from the year before, and Victoria’s road toll is sitting at a 16-year high.
Drivers made up most of the fatalities in 2022 followed by motorbike riders, passengers, pedestrians and cyclists.
Two-thirds were in regional and rural areas, a trend that has not shifted in over a decade, the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics’ annual figures showed.
Andry Rakotonirainy, a road safety professor from the Queensland University of Technology, said it was difficult to pinpoint the cause of the rising toll, though 90 per cent of crashes were the result of human error.
Contributing factors could be people returning to the roads after long periods of COVID-19 isolation, damaged infrastructure in the wake of severe flooding and fatigue among those taking up long-distance travel again.
But there is no cohesive national data on causes, risks and outcomes of crashes, making it hard to establish informed safety strategies, Prof Rakotonirainy said.
“We don’t take the approach of playing blame games, road safety researchers know that’s not working,” he told AAP.
“It’s the responsibility of government, of the community, of all of us to make a change, but saying, ‘there are idiots on the road’ or ‘it’s the responsibility of the government alone’ is not going to help.”
Behind the statistics that fade in and out of news headlines, there are lives lost in an instant and those left behind.
Harrison Payne,18, was a passenger in a 4WD that flipped on Queensland’s idyllic Bribie Island in 2021. His family set up a foundation in his name to raise awareness of driving responsibly.
Police officer Michael Stewart, who attended fatal car accidents throughout his career, lost his 17-year-old son Jaylan in a high-speed crash in northern NSW in October 2020.
“A young man who had so much to live for was crushed alone in a car on a quiet country road,” Mr Stewart said after his son’s death.
The Australian Road Safety Foundation has brought some of these families’ stories to light to capture the lasting effects of crashes.
Founder Russell White said reducing road trauma was complex, as people’s life experiences, habits and moods don’t just play out at home or in workplaces but also on the roads.
“The road is a melting pot of social views, of culture, individual ideas and skill,” Mr White said.
“Somewhere sometime, there will be the wrong set of conditions, the wrong habit, two people on the same course – it’s those sliding door moments.”
Australians should be taught about road safety skills much earlier and after being licensed, rather than condensing education in the teenage years, he said.
“It’s at a time when someone’s finishing school or starting a career – all this stuff happening at one time – then we just throw in the most dangerous thing.”
The country’s National Road Safety Strategy aims to reduce annual road deaths by 50 per cent by 2030 with an ultimate target of zero by 2050.
An analysis by the Australian Automobile Association, the peak motoring body, showed NSW was the only state on track to meet the 2030 goal.
Managing Director Michael Bradley said national detailed data on road fatalities and serious injuries was critical for change.
Different states record and keep varying crash information, leaving huge gaps in understanding of fatalities and injuries.
“Anything that kills 100 Australians a month, hospitalises 100 Australians a day, or anything that costs the Australian economy $30 billion a year has to be a priority,” Mr Bradley said.
A year-and-a-half after Koby Wellman’s death his sister thinks of him every time she drives away from her family home, just as he did on that day in January 2022.
“I just want people to realise the long-lasting effect it has on not just the family but the community,” Ms Wellman said.
“It’s not worth risking your mum and dad never being able to walk you down the aisle, or your siblings not being able to meet their nieces and nephews, your friends never being able to see you again.
“It’s just not worth the pain.”