Canberra fatal crash victim Blake Corney's parents support road safety campaign

Fast forward a few years and this scene in Gordon is gone, reduced to a memory and a video saved on Andrew Corney's phone.

Only one of his sons is still here, and the void left by the other's death could not be more obvious as Aidan, soon to start kindergarten, approaches the dining table with a toy and says, "Daddy, look at this".

Aidan was just two years old when his big brother Blake was killed at the age of four by the culpable driving of Akis Livas, a serial criminal who crashed a truck into the back of the family's Ford Territory.

And so it is that, on a recent Saturday afternoon, Aidan has to play by himself for a while as his mother, Camille Jago, and Mr Corney sit down for an interview.

Determined that no other family should face what theirs has endured, the couple are throwing their support behind an ACM campaign that is aimed at improving truck safety and preventing avoidable deaths like that of Blake.

The campaign, Blake's Legacy, is calling for the adoption of a series of recommendations recently made by ACT Chief Coroner Lorraine Walker, who conducted an inquest into the boy's tragic 2018 death on the Monaro Highway at Hume in Canberra's south-east.

It is calling on governments to incentivise trucking operators to quickly adopt modern technologies like autonomous emergency braking, which Ms Walker found may have saved Blake's life.

Among other calls, the campaign is also pushing for those in power to mandate that medical practitioners inform licensing authorities of patients who may pose a danger on the roads.

This would help prevent people like Livas, who ignored the fact he likely had sleep apnoea for about five years, being behind the wheel of heavy vehicles.

Road safety advocacy is, for Ms Jago, a way to continue mothering Blake and to honour him by making a difference for others.

The human toll could not be more clear as she admits, however, that legislative and regulatory change in her son's name would be "a really poor substitute" for her boy's life.

"I'd much prefer Blake to still be here and for him to not have to have a legacy," Ms Jago says.

Her voice quivers as she reveals how the loss of her first child is magnified by "the everyday things that people would never think of".

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These have included being confronted by a school form asking for the name of her eldest child during the process of enrolling Aidan.

She has found herself unable to fill it out because her eldest child, described by Mr Corney as "fantastically energetic", was robbed of the opportunity to ever attend school.

"This is hard," Ms Jago says of life without Blake.

"It's hard finding a way to not just exist but live a meaningful life for Aidan, and doing that for Aidan certainly makes it easier.

"But also, [we need to live meaningfully] for ourselves and to honour Blake.

"We're still here, and he doesn't get to live his life. And so we have to make ours matter all the more."

By being intimately involved in the coronial process that followed Blake's death, Ms Jago and Mr Corney are already doing just that.

They now hope Ms Walker's recommendations, in particular those about potentially life-saving technologies and mandatory reporting by medical practitioners, will be implemented sooner rather than later.

The pair believe these are achievable measures that would reduce the number of dangerous drivers being in control of trucks in the first place, and make the vehicles safer in the event of distraction or anything else that draws focus away from the road ahead.

Blake's death was, as Mr Corney puts it, brought about by a series of links in a chain, which included Livas being able to drive despite his medical issues and his truck not being as safe as it could have been.

Breaking any one of those links might prevent many future crashes or lessen their impacts, saving the lives of victims.

It might become Blake's legacy.

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