NSW's top traffic cop is "filthy" about the state's rising road toll, saying there is no pattern to suggest why in 10 months the number of fatalities have surpassed last year's total.

As of Thursday, 396 people had died on NSW roads in 2009, well past 2008's total of 374.

"We have looked at the road toll for this year and the reasons for it and every fatal crash is investigated to the nth degree," Assistant Commissioner John Hartley told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.

"On behalf of the coroner and investigators, we have not seen a pattern this year that we can say it's down to one factor.

"Speed is a major factor, we've also had an increase in pedestrians killed, increased number of cyclists and motorcyclists killed on our roads.

"Yes I am filthy about driver behaviour. I am filthy that a lot of these crashes are caused by drivers not doing the right thing on the roads, drivers not respecting other road users, and certainly drivers who take risks."

The government's latest move to tackle road deaths is the distribution of a safety messages along with traffic infringement notices.

"From next week, drivers who receive a penalty notice in the mail for a speeding or a red light offence will see a change to those penalty notices with a road safety message inserted," Transport Minister David Campbell said.

Mr Campbell said law enforcement efforts and penalties for traffic offences were strong, adding that, as the minister responsible, the growing number of deaths on the state's roads was stressing him.

"I am concerned, I'm worried as an individual member of our community and I'm stressed as the minister with responsibility for road safety and I will continue to try and drive home the message that we all have a role to play in driving down the road toll," he said.

The safety notices were "not a silver bullet", he added, likening the campaign to the anti-cancer messages used on cigarette packets.

"It's a similar sort of thing to say to people, this is the message, it's right there in your face, understand it," he said.

Opposition police spokesman Mike Gallacher said sending a safety message after the offence was a waste of time.

"What we have here is a situation where the government's so-called proactive announcement is going to be giving a warning to somebody who has already been booked," Mr Gallacher said.

He called on the government to give the police highway patrol sector a greater profile to address road safety.

In the latest fatal road smash in NSW, teenage learner driver Kayla Green, 16, died early Wednesday morning and her three friends were seriously injured when their car collided with another vehicle near Port Macquarie, on the state's mid-north coast.

On Thursday morning, two separate incidents in the state's south put a woman driver and a male cyclist in hospital with critical head injuries.