Dr Ray Shuey APM is a specialist in road safety - both in Australia and abroad.

One of his earliest memories of death, and road trauma, was when he was seven years old. Attending primary school in Ballarat, one of his classmates was killed while riding her bike. He still recalls lining up along Lydiard Street for her funeral.

Years later, in 1975, his newly married brother and sister-in-law were killed in a head-on collision near Kyabram. A driver had been attempting to pass a truck and was driving on the wrong side of the road when the collision occurred.

These tragedies were catalysts for his lifelong dedication to investigating and addressing road trauma. This includes through 41 years of policing. As a police officer he notified many families about the deaths of their loved ones and undertook numerous investigations into fatal crashes.

During his time with Victoria Police he also spent 14 years in the executive positions of Assistant Commissioner for traffic and operations and acting Deputy Commissioner. Working as Assistant Commissioner, he recalls receiving messages about people being killed on roads across the state every single day.

During his career Dr Shuey worked to increase enforcement and education programs, which led to a steep decrease in the number of lives lost on Victorian roads.

Dr Shuey has authored and contributed to road safety publications, including for the World Health Organisation, and in recent years has also completed a PHD about road policing in low and middle-income countries.

Last year he was announced as the recipient of the Victorian Senior Australian of the Year award 2020 for his decades of work addressing road safety.

Ever passionate about the issue, he continues to consult on the issue both in Australia and abroad.

Road fatalities affect a whole community and often the trauma is felt more so in regional areas and small towns.

Dr Shuey said evidence showed between 10 to 20 people were immediately affected by one road fatality, in addition to about 100 others on the periphery.

This is why he believes that "a lot more needs to be done as an holistic approach to road safety", including tailored approaches for individual communities.

He believes the government has been too focused on single issues, such as dropping the speed limit on rural roads, when road safety reform should be based on evidence gathered from reviewing the causal factors in every crash from decades past.

"You've got to look at each crash, why it happened and how it happened," he said. "It's got to be an holistic approach. If it was a one stop shop solution we would have fixed it 50 years ago."

While advancements have been made in regards to vehicle technology and road infrastructure has been upgraded, Dr Shuey said road trauma was a "constant battle".

Describing it as a "complex problem", he said addressing it required a focus on numerous areas. While this includes upgrading rural roads he said addressing the human contribution, by working to change driver mentality and behaviour, was also urgently needed to reduce the number of lives lost on the state's roads.

While there are groups undertaking "great efforts" to improve road safety, he said there needed to be more coordination in order to really reduce road trauma.

"We are trying to invent new ways to address road trauma but we are not doing it from a collective point of view of community," he told The Courier.

"Somebody has to look at it from what caused the crashes in the first place to the solutions. You don't do that by dictating from a state level or national level, you do that by community consultation and working parties."

He believes this coordination could be achieved through local governments stepping up.

"It's getting all those community groups engaged with local councils and getting everybody in the community involved in reducing trauma," he said.

Councils could approach road safety as a governance issue and could consult with the community, including representatives from different vested interested groups, about what the specific issues are.

In addition to lobbying for road upgrades, he said councils could also do a lot to prevent trauma in terms of changing mindsets about road safety issues.

The latest data shows that speed is a contributing factor in at least 30 per cent of fatality crashes, while alcohol is a factor in 17 per cent.

Last year, more than 30 per cent of lives lost on the state's roads had a suspected involvement of drugs.

Meanwhile, 32 per cent of people who have died on the state's roads this year were not wearing a seatbelt. Of these, around 90 per cent were male.

"We have little effort being put on driver responsibility, which is to reduce those who speed, drink and drug drive, use their mobile phone and drive when they're tired," Dr Shuey noted.

He firmly believes in communities working to create solutions for communities and that addressing road safety issues from a community level, through local campaigns, to be important to create much-needed changes to driver attitudes and prevent accidents from happening in the first place.

"It's a dual function issue. We can't just say fix the roads - that's not the solution - and we can't just say we'll have 80-kilometre speed limits on all country roads. That's not going to be the solution either. It must be a holistic approach to road safety."

As part of changing driver attitudes, he said more respect was needed.

"Respect for yourself, respect for your passengers, other road users and respect for the law," Dr Shuey said. "We have selfish people who say 'I'm late for work', 'I need to take the kids to school' or 'I'm in a hurry and everybody else can get out of my way'.

He said it was these selfish mindsets that could lead to road trauma.

A state government spokesperson said "every life lost on our roads was one too many".

They said the government was "doing everything" it could to address road trauma through Victoria's new Road Safety Strategy and was passing laws to increase safety for road users, delivering infrastructure and trialing new technology in addition to launching public awareness campaigns.

"Addressing the root causes of crashes on our roads is a complex problem that demands a sophisticated, multifaceted, evidence-based response - and we'll leave no stone unturned when it comes to driving down road trauma.

"Despite so many Victorians doing the right thing, the data tells us too many motorists are still making poor choices such as speeding, driving drunk or on impaired, not wearing a seat belt or picking up their mobile phone - and that's costing lives.

"We cannot do this alone, road safety is the responsibility of every single one of us. The only way we can truly save Victorians from the heartbreak of a loved one not making it home is if we do it together."

The City of Ballarat was contacted for comment.