When a life is lost on the road, an age, gender, sometimes a name hit the headlines.
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But behind those ages, genders and names are real people, and their families who are left behind.
The families who never thought it would be their loved one - their partner, parent or sibling - who would become a road toll statistic.
The number of lives lost on Hunter roads this year is lower than the previous three years, which police say is due to coronavirus restrictions earlier this year.
But talk to the families affected and the emergency services who respond to these incidents and they'll say even one death is too many.
Tammy Cooke lost her husband Luke - the father to her children - in a crash at Rutherford on November 7.
He was a passenger in his mate Jamie Fogg's car which left the road and collided with a guard rail.
Luke was thrown from the vehicle. He was 28-years-old.
Tammy was one of the first on the scene and wasn't aware of the severity of the crash until she saw her husband's lifeless body.
Mr Fogg has been charged with numerous offences, including dangerous and negligent driving occasioning death and driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. He remains before the courts.
Tammy said Luke's death still hadn't fully sunk in.
"I still don't feel like it's hit me," she said. "I'm waiting for him to walk in the door.
"Even though I sit beside his grave each day it still doesn't feel real."
She said his death had also been hard for their children to come to terms with. The pair had Jayse, 4 and Mitchell, 7, together, while Luke had bonded closely with Tammy's son Braiden, 13 from a previous relationship.
"They just want their daddy to come home," Tammy said. "Luke was a great father. He loved taking the boys on the motorbike.
"He loved nothing more than his family."
Tammy described Luke as a "larrikin" who had an amazing life ahead of him.
"He'd laugh at all the silly things," she said. "He lived life each day.
"We were together nine years. I loved watching him become a man, become a father. He was so happy to be a father.
"He was a concreter and had set up his own business. We were due to start building at Greta. We had our whole life planned out. We were going to have a good future."
Just a few weeks later, Peita Heffernan lost her brother Trent when he became involved in a head-on crash at Ryhope on November 29.
Similarly to Luke, another driver has been charged in relation to the incident.
And even more coincidentally, the word Peita used to describe her brother was the same Tammy used for Luke ... "larrikin".
"I'm very biased but he was just larger than life," Peita said. "He was the life of the party, he'd do anything for anyone.
"There's only 18 months between us so we were very close. He had three older sisters. We called him the golden child.
"He was just a funny bastard. He used to play these tricks on my mum all the time, he'd tell mum a story which was total bullshit.
"We will miss that so much. He had so many nicknames, he was the biggest pelican of the pelicans."
Trent was on his way home to celebrate his 42nd birthday with his wife Kirsty and kids Beau, 12, Will, 9, and Matilda, 6, when tragedy struck.
"It's just devastating," Peita said. "He was such an awesome dad. He was so dedicated to them.
"He was king of the kids. We had a family event every October long weekend. Every morning Trent was the first one up to take all the kids to the beach."
The love out there for Trent wasn't just from his family. A GoFundMe set up to support the family after losing their main breadwinner has attracted more than $50,000 in donations.
Port Stephens Manning Highway Patrol Acting Inspector Michael Buko said each and every fatal crash stayed with the officers who had to respond to them.
"I've been doing this for 23 years and you remember every accident you go to," he said. "It stays with all police. You can't un-see these things. But we do our job to reduce them."
Thankfully the road toll for 2020 across the Hunter has decreased this year due to the coronavirus limiting the amount of people on the roads for part of the year.
Even though restrictions on people moving around have lifted since, Acting Inspector Buko wants the downward trend to continue.
"No one should die on our roads," he said. "Really almost every accident is avoidable. The decisions people make in split seconds can affect other lives.
"It's up to public to make an effort."
It's a message echoed strongly by both Tammy and Peita.
"I would never want anyone to experience this," Peita said. "And too many people experience this unnecessarily. It's absolutely life changing.
"Once you experience this, you notice it so much more and it scares me.
"A car is a weapon. Every time you get in the car you're driving a weapon.
"People need to make sure that they're fit to drive. Be aware of not only your own safety but others around you. Stay off your mobile phone. Be situationally aware."
Luke died just five minutes from his home on what Tammy said was a notoriously dangerous bend.
Just six days after Luke died, a 19-year-old man was also killed when his vehicle left the same stretch of road and crashed.
"I've been down there a lot since the accident - it's where I go to let out my anger, my emotions," Tammy said. "It's 100km/h, I feel like it's just safe to do at 80km/h."
She also urged people to take more care when behind the wheel of a car.
"Stop drink driving no matter how close of a drive, it's not worth it," Tammy said. "Slow down on roads you don't know.
"I never thought for a second this would happen to Luke."