Twelve white crosses will line the Hume Freeway at Wangaratta as part of a country policeman's push to prevent deaths on the roads over Easter.
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For the second year in a row, highway patrol sergeant Michael Connors will take the 1.5 metre wooden crosses he fashioned himself and put them along a 50-kilometre stretch of the freeway from Glenrowan to Springhurst.
Each cross marks the spot where a car came off the road – 12 crosses for 14 lives.
"I've been a policeman for 24 years and you see the horrific aftermath of these crashes. I just felt in myself there was more that could be done. At the end of the day, I want to know that I've done everything I can," Sergeant Connors says.
One of those crosses represents the life of Marjorie Hutchieson, killed on July 9 last year.
The 87 year old was on her way home to Wangaratta with her husband, her sister and a grandson. A freak storm hit when they were 15 minutes from home and a layer of ice had hardened on the road.
Six cars slid off the freeway. The passengers in five of them escaped injury but the car Mrs Hutchieson was in hit the only tree in sight.
Her sister, her sister's grandson and her husband of 68 years survived but the crash killed the mother of seven and grandmother of 24.
Her husband, Bob, will turn 91 this month and he wishes the accident had taken him too.
"Having a loving family helps but it doesn't help enough. I just want to be with her," Mr Hutchieson says.
The pain takes his breath away and right before it overwhelms him, he distracts himself and points to the photos covering the lounge room walls in their home of 50 years.
"I've got stories for all of them," he says, and he floods the room with tales of his children and how he started writing to Marjorie when he was serving in the navy.
"Her mum and dad were strict Methodists and I always wondered why they let her write to a sailor. Then I figured later on I was 3000 miles away so they had no worries."
Mr Hutchieson is going with Sergeant Connors to see his wife's cross on Good Friday. It will be the first time he has been back to the crash scene.
He hopes people will see her cross and take more care.
"I want people to know it doesn't get any better, you've got it for life," he says.
The date of the crash that took Mrs Hutchieson is written in orange marker on a whiteboard in Sergeant Connors' office. Every "fatal" his officers attend is listed.
"I look at it at the start of my shift and by the end of my shift I'm happy if I haven't added to it," he says.
Sergeant Connors is what the force calls a "believer". A committed traffic cop, he truly believes the road toll can be reduced to zero and that his whiteboard will be unmarked.
"I just feel there's always more that can be done. People see the television campaigns and read the stories but, hopefully, the crosses are more in their face and people will understand it can happen to them," he says.
- The campaign is supported by VicRoads.
