The family of Warners Bay teenager Bryson Dimovski has thanked those who have signed a petition calling for tougher penalties for those who leave the scene of a motor vehicle crash.
The NSW Legislative Assembly e-petition recently ticked over 20,000 signatures and will now be debated in Parliament in September.
Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper has sponsored the petition.
The petition seeks to increase penalties for those who fail to stop after fatal crashes. It proposes to have those who flee the scene treated as those who refuse to take a breath test. It also seeks to reform the Bail Act so there is a presumption against bail for those charged with hit- and-run.
Finally, it seeks to remove intensive correction orders as a sentencing option.
Twenty-three-year-old Jaycob Gemza was sentenced to an aggregate five-year jail sentence with a non-parole period of three years and three months in April this year for the hit-and-run death of the 14-year-old on the evening of 28 July 2023.
Gemza's car clipped Bryson, who was travelling on his scooter in the opposite direction, in the fog lane of Macquarie Road.
Bryson's body was found in a ditch about 10 metres away seven hours later.
Closed-circuit video footage from a nearby business shows Gemza, who admitted to drinking three full-strength schooners of beer before getting behind the wheel, walking back to the scene after the collision.
Bryson's broken scooter and a shoe were still on the roadside.
Gemza dumped his car about two kilometres away and was collected by a friend.
He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run in July 2024.
However, he did not plead guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death until last November - 27 months after the incident.
"The moment you leave the scene it becomes a much more heinous offence. This offender left Bryson for dead and no one came to his aid," Mr Dimovski said.
