A 50-year-old woman died on Saturday after the motorcycle she was on crashed on the Great Western Highway. A man was also badly hurt in the crash.

Regardless of how this happened, though, another family has been left grieving and many lives have been changed forever.

Sadly, the crash was just one of several across the state, prompting another reminder from police for motorists to take care on our roads at all times.

The state has been hit with some terrible weather in recent weeks but that alone cannot explain this alarming rise in road deaths.

Police are also concerned that the increasing use of mobile phones by drivers – despite warnings and laws designed to curb such behaviour – is also creating lack of attention on roads, sometimes with fatal results.

That cannot explain every accident either.

If there was a single silver bullet to end road deaths it would have been employed years ago.

Instead, it is a lot of small things that each of us must do every time we drive that will ultimately make a difference.

In normal conditions, road experts recommend a three-second gap to the car in front of you on the road, doubled to six seconds in the wet.

It’s not only speed either, drivers need to take extra care in all aspects of their driving and checking their vehicle is maintained to safe standards.

But the most important thing is patience.

No matter where you’re going, getting there a few minutes later is better than not getting there at all.

The NSW Police’s Operation West Force – part of a campaign to drive down the death and injury toll – comes to Orana from April 1 to 3.

It is an intense traffic enforcement operation being carried out in Western NSW and follows what police describe as “an extraordinary amount of serious road crashes, some claiming lives”. 

They say: "Police are serious about driving road trauma stats towards zero. For every person that loses their life to road trauma another seven people, on average, are directly affected.”

Think of all those impacted. Do the right thing ... drive safely.