It was a day that started like any other. Alison, Gavin and their two children Darcy and Jules had been working at the wrecking yard at Wandandian, the family business they had owned for eight months.

“Gavin and Darcy had left to drive Nowra to pick up some tools. Jules stayed at the shop with me. They got five minutes up the road,” Alison recalls.

A fully laden refrigerated semi trailer lost control about 500 metres south of the Island Point Road intersection, slid and came to rest on the four-wheel-drive Gavin was driving. He was critically injured but Darcy, then three years old, escaped any serious injury.

It was about 3pm. Gavin had driven to Nowra to pick up parts for the wrecking yard they operated in Wandandian. He had taken Darcy with them.

“I knew that there was an accident because I had a customer ring up from over at the Basin way who said they couldn’t get through because the highway was closed,” she says.

“Every single time I drive to Nowra I’m running through that day and what happened, and the car ride to the hospital.

“It’s a constant reminder, especially when you hear of other accidents, especially so close. I know exactly what these families are going to be going through and it’s horrendous.”

Read more: ‘Something has to be done’ - emergency worker calls for Princes Highway upgrade

Apart from the pain and suffering which attends losing a husband in a road accident, there is the convoluted process that follows.

“There’s so much red tape, hoops, things that you have to go through that you really pretty much put your grief aside because you have to go to solicitor’s appointments and psychologist’s appointments and all these things to do with the Compulsory Third Party insurance process,” Alison explains.

The widow contacted Fairfax Media after learning about the FIX IT NOW campaign. She wanted to add her voice to the growing clamour for a complete highway upgrade south of the Jervis Bay Road turnoff.

Alison hopes that by telling her story, she can get the message out that a highway upgrade is about more than money.

“It’s not about money and that’s what people don’t realise. Until it actually happens to you, you don’t realise the impact that it has.

“You want to scream and shout but you’re not being listened to. You’re not being heard. It’s like what’s happened to us doesn’t matter.”

On Tuesday, NSW Police launched its Easter long weekend road safety campaign. The usual double demerits will be in force, but police have also stepped up their efforts with an unorthodox approach aimed at educating the public.

When we interviewed Alison Murray, it was the day after her son Darcy’s sixth birthday. Evidence of a family celebration could be seen – chocolate cake on the kitchen bench, a party hat in a bowl of licorice allsorts, a Lego project on the dining table. 

It was a happy scene but there was an underlying sadness. Darcy’s dad, Gavin, was absent, his life taken on a day that started like any other but ended in tragedy. 

All that remains of the loving father, who grew up in Sussex Inlet and returned to the area to raise his family, are memories and photographs. And there is a determination on the part of his widow to ensure his death wasn’t in vain – that action is taken to make the highway safer.  

Alison’s story is a stark reminder that tragedy can strike at any time – and that, as a consequence, many other lives can be turned upside down.

Her journey through the bureaucratic maze that followed the accident would challenge most ordinary people. Compensated for the loss of earning capacity and the ability to work, she fell just shy of qualifying for an additional payment for pain and suffering. This was on the basis of a 20-minute interview.

The family business she and Gavin had bought and built up in eight short months had to be sold. The lifestyle they had built for themselves and their two children was destroyed.

Alison has found the strength to speak up about her experience. She says this would have impossible in the immediate wake of the accident.

The most compelling point she makes is that highway safety is not just about money – it’s about people. It’s about her children, who face life without a father. It’s about his social group and the mate they have lost. It’s about the community in which he grew up.

She is convinced that had the highway been divided at the spot where the oncoming truck lost control, had there been some kind of barrier between lanes, the driver error that triggered the accident would not have been fatal.

Every time she hears of another accident on the highway, she wonders whether an upgrade might have prevented the tragedy. She’s certain it would. Every time she drives up to Nowra, she relives the day she lost Gavin.  

We applaud Alison for her courage in speaking out, for wanting to #fixitnow.