An elderly woman’s death on a country highway has pushed the Easter road toll to eight across NSW as police urge the community to work with them to prevent the loss of more lives.

NSW police reported a string of dangerous incidents over the long weekend, including cases of high-range drink-driving and motorists travelling at excessive speeds.

Traffic and Highway Patrol commander Brett McFadden said some of the behaviour over the four-day Easter period was “simply unacceptable”.

“We can’t accept this irresponsible behaviour and the community shouldn’t either. It is time we, as a collective, worked together to end this carnage on our roads,” he said on Tuesday.

Many of the deaths were avoidable, adding to the tragedy of the loss of life, Mr McFadden said.

Police issued more than 5000 speeding tickets, charged just under 300 people with drink-driving and received just over 860 positive roadside drug detections during their operation, which started on Thursday.

“These are all the contributing factors of the death and carnage that’s taking place on our roads every day,” Mr McFadden said. 

His comments follow a horror long weekend on NSW roads, when eight people were killed in separate crashes.

Five occurred in regional areas, with the remainder happening in cities.

An 83-year-old woman was killed in the state’s central west on Monday afternoon at Daroobalgie, south of Parkes. 

She was a passenger in a sedan that collided with a ute, critically injuring the elderly male driver of her car.

A male motorcyclist died on Monday afternoon following a police pursuit after he failed to stop for police in Sydney’s inner west. 

An investigation into the pursuit has been launched and will be subject to an independent review.

There were 1286 deaths on Australian roads in the year to the end of February, up 116 on the previous 12-month period.

In NSW, the road toll stands at 364 in the year to the start of April, up from 272 for the same period in 2023.

Mr McFadden said the community needed to work with police to ensure everything was done to prevent more road deaths.

“You don’t want to be the driver that causes that (injury or death) to another human being,” he said.