"Unless you've stood in my shoes and seen the horrible things I've seen, you will never know. It never goes away."
And next month Andrew Corney will relive the horror of July 2018 all over again.
As a proponent of the ACT's tough new driving legislation passed in the ACT Assembly on Wednesday, Mr Corney was pleased to see progress on the issue but pragmatic as to whether the specific medical-legal loophole which was such a huge contributing factor to his son's death ever will be fully addressed.
In July 2018, Andrew Corney and Camille Jago's four-year-old son Blake was in the back of the family car when it was stopped at the traffic lights at the intersection of the Monaro Highway and Mugga Way in Hume.
In the seconds which followed, a 16-tonne truck driven by an impaired driver, Akis Livas, slammed into the back of the Ford Territory with an impact which killed four-year-old Blake instantly.
Livas had been diagnosed with sleep apnoea but did not attend treatment sessions. In the five years before the fatal crash, Livas had reported breathlessness, drowsiness and insomnia. And yet he continued driving.
At the coronial hearing three years after the massive Monaro Highway crash - an incident so grim and shocking that some seasoned police officers later requested a transfer out of the crash investigation team - Mr Corney spoke about how he cradled his dead son's head in his hands and wept.
Livas was sentenced to culpable driving causing death. He was released on parole last month, five days before what would have been Blake Corney's ninth birthday.
In March last year, in support of the family, The Canberra Times generated a week-long series of articles which highlighted the many issues relevant to this incident, including mandatory medical reporting for heavy vehicle drivers and the lack of automatic emergency braking systems on heavy vehicles.
Part of the new ACT legislation will eventually include a new mandatory reporting regime for doctors, who would be required to flag to authorities when drivers like Livas have medical issues which affects their fitness to drive.
How such a system would operate practically remains the next challenge, with the consultation and engagement process to build that legislation expected to take a further 12 months.
"I'm not in favour of extra legislation which just doesn't work," Mr Corney said.
"My worry will be whatever happens, if it remains sort of aspirational piece of legislation or a stick that's never used, then what's the point of it?
"In the case of Akis Livas who killed Blake, I understand that at the same [medical] practice where received his clearance to drive - and maybe he [the doctor] was lied to, I don't know - he [Livas] had two printed referrals to attend a sleep apnoea clinic, but didn't go.
"If you were a doctor looking at someone to see if they had any illnesses, you'd look at his medical records and say: 'hey, mate you haven't been to these things [clinics], what happened?'"
In the ACT, a GP, medical specialist or healthcare worker can refer patients to the Fitness to Drive Clinic for assessment.
Last year the National Transport Commission released a fresh set of guidelines to help with that assessment however, dangerous, chronic sleep disorders did not face any tougher scrutiny in this national review.
So the loophole still remains open and Mr Corney suspected that even with specific legislation, "to get a doctor convicted out of anything like this would be exceedingly difficult, I suspect".
One potential alternative to criminal charges against doctors could be the requirement to front a professional standards board.
The Medical Board of Australia's Code of Conduct, for instance, offers no specific guidance to medical professionals on matters such as this but it does require doctors to comply with "any relevant policies, procedures and reporting requirements".
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