Sounding scared, Sarah told him she had broken down on the side of the Hume Highway.

She had pulled into a narrow breakdown lane, but trucks and cars were flying past, only centimetres away, she said.

Minutes later she was killed.

A distracted driver ploughed into her car, also claiming the life of a tow-truck driver.

"A day later we had to be driven down to Goulburn morgue to identify Sarah.... and to see where she was killed," he says.

"Her blood was still staining the Hume Highway. She'd been thrown forward 40 metres and left in pieces.

"That was probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life."

A court would later find the driver hadn't looked at the road ahead for 11 seconds.

In the decade since, Mr Frazer has devoted his life to improving road safety outcomes - something that last month saw him awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia.

Australia now has a national road safety week, the Sydney Harbour Bridge has been lit up in yellow - Sarah's favourite colour - as an international road safety symbol, and Mr Frazer has worked with the World Health Organisation to highlight the issue globally.

But frustratingly little progress has been made in actually saving lives on the 10th anniversary of Sarah's death, he says.

Between 2011 and 2020, the government aimed to reduce road deaths by at least 30 per cent.

It achieved a reduction of only 22.4 per cent, and transport crashes remain the third highest reason for hospitalisation nationally.

The majority of improvements are owed to advances in vehicle technology, Mr Frazer says.

"More than 12,000 people have been killed since my beautiful daughter died on that Hume Highway and over 400,000 Australians sustained serious injuries."

"How is it that we can continue with road trauma at these pandemic levels - in fact worse than any pandemic we've ever experienced within our lifetimes?"

He says road safety isn't improving as it should because authorities are ignoring research and best practice.

He points to the NSW government's "ludicrous" decision to reintroduce warning signs on mobile speed cameras after a drastic increase in fines which prompted accusations of revenue raising.

"This narrative that the speeding fines are unfair, I'm sorry, that just doesn't wash if we're actually about protecting people," he says.

"I get quite angry when I see governments pulling back from what they know is the research... because we're actually trading off human lives."

The move similarly drew the ire of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and road safety experts.

Another example of governments ignoring best practice is road specifications, Mr Frazer says.

Guidelines accepted by each state and territory stipulate that breakdown lanes should be at least 3 metres wide.

The one Sarah pulled into was 1.5m wide, and hemmed in my brambles, Mr Frazer says.

"She couldn't even get her car fully into it."

"She physically could not get off that road."

Authorities across the country need to find the political will to unapologetically and aggressively pursue a reduction in road deaths in injuries, he says.

"We spend $30 billion every year on road trauma and death in Australia.

"But I reckon we should talk more about how much - or little - we invest.

"How much is a human life worth?"

Australian Associated Press