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Fifteen-year-old Joshua Elmes wanted to fly fast jets in the defence force before buying a rural property and settling down to raise two children.

Instead, his grieving family is left remembering a doting older brother who was passionate about motorbikes and playing the drums after he was killed in a road accident on Saturday night.

Lee-Ann, Aaron, and Matthew Elmes holding a photo of Josh.Credit: Chris Doheny

Speaking to this masthead on Monday, Lee-Ann and Matthew Elmes said they had found a typed list of their son’s hopes and dreams on his computer after his tragic death.

“There was a lot of joking, a lot of fun and a lot of funny times [in our house],” Lee-Ann said.

However, Matthew said he had previously asked Joshua not to get into the car that crashed on Saturday, saying the group had been “pushing the boundaries too much, driving too fast”.

“Eventually, Josh stopped hopping in the car for the last four months, as far as we know. I might not have even found out he was in the car if they didn’t have the accident.”

Joshua was killed along with Lucus Garzoli, 14, a female teen and a 31-year-old woman when their Toyota smashed into a tree near Hamilton on Saturday morning. The sole survivor, a 17-year-old girl, was on Monday afternoon in a serious but stable condition in The Alfred hospital.

Joshua had been involved in army cadets, attaining the rank of sergeant and travelling to Puckapunyal for additional courses.

“His main interest was cadets – he’d levelled up, going to Puckapunyal to do extra courses,” Lee-Ann said. “He loved being out on the farm, I think that nature was his go-to.”

Lee-Ann said the days since her son was killed had been surreal.

“A parent’s worst nightmare is losing a child and people say that to warn you … but you don’t understand that until it happens to you,” she said.

Lee-Ann said she was heartbroken for the other families embroiled in the tragedy, and it was only her strong faith and constant community support that had kept her afloat.

“I just want to let other families know: please, when you go to bed at night, make sure you say a loving comment [to your children],” she said. “Every time you leave, make sure you tell the person you love them and you’re proud of them.”

Lee-Ann has created a fundraising campaign for the funerals and costs of the affected Hamilton families. She hopes any leftover money would go to helping start a drop-in centre so that teens in the region have somewhere to go, instead of resorting to late-night joyrides.

Police on Sunday at the scene of a car crash where four people were killed in Bochara.Credit: Nicole Cleary

“I don’t want this tragedy to end and these four just to be forgotten because time has moved on, then another fatality happens and we lose more kids” she said.

The family of Lucus Garzoli released a statement on Monday afternoon, saying he was “a much-loved member of our family and his loss will be felt deeply across the entire community”.

Lucus Garzoli, 14, one of four people killed in a road accident near Hamilton on Saturday night.

“He was an amazing big brother and beautiful son and will be missed greatly,” the statement said.

The community of Hamilton began grieving as news of the crash spread on Sunday. On Monday morning, students of Monivae College left tributes to their schoolmate outside the campus gates. Wiping away tears, they left bouquets of flowers and photos of their friend.

“Rest easy Josh, you will never be forgotten,” one poster read. “Never thought it would end this way. You will be missed,” a group of his mates had written on another card.

College principal Jonathan Rowe said the school community was devastated by the tragedy.

Victoria Police assistant commissioner Glenn Weir said a crash reconstruction on the narrow strip of Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road in Bochara where the accident occurred revealed the car was travelling “well in excess of 100km/h”.

“To do that speed on that road at that time of day, any time really, is just incomprehensible to me,” he said.

Floral tributes for Joshua Elmes at Monivae College in Hamilton on Monday.Credit: Ashleigh McMillan

Police believe a number of passengers also weren’t wearing seat belts and investigators were on Monday still trying to determine who was driving.

Ten people had been killed in six separate accidents on Victoria’s roads since Friday.

The deaths bring the state’s road toll to 133, 37 more than the same time last year. Police say at current projections, Victoria’s death toll could approach 300 by the end of the year – over 60 more than the average of 237 over the past five years.

Weir said the number of crashes causing multiple fatalities was a stark difference in this year’s toll.

“This time last year, we’ve had one double fatality for the whole first five months. This year, we’ve had eight double fatalities. We’ve had two quadruple fatalities and, of course, that terrible quintuple fatality up in Strathmerton.”

A 63-year-old from Yarra Junction became the latest fatality on Monday afternoon when he died in hospital following a collision on Saturday in Coldstream, in Melbourne’s north-east. Police say the driver veered onto the wrong side of the road, clipping one tree before crashing into another tree.

Transport Accident Commission head of road safety Samantha Cockfield said experts had observed international trends, reflected across Australia, that the numbers of people being killed on the road had increased since the pandemic, but did not yet understand why.

“I think not so much complacency, but belief itself; belief that you can do better than you can on the road, that you’re better than other drivers does play into it, and I think, to some degree, [drivers are] taking risks maybe we weren’t doing prior to us being locked down for a number of years,” she said.

“We’ve seen that speed has been a major factor in most crashes.”

University of Melbourne associate professor Jason Thompson said recent fatalities would continue unabated as city and regional areas become increasingly reliant on cars as primary modes of transport.

“We want road safety to get better, but we’re not doing anything about reducing our reliance on vehicles or expanding alternative transport options which are safer,” he said.

Joshua Elmes was one of four people killed in a road accident near Hamilton on Saturday.Credit: Facebook

A study in medical journal The Lancet found that death and injury due to motor vehicle crashes is the world’s fifth-leading cause of mortality and morbidity.

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