High-speed police chases are under the spotlight in New South Wales, with revelations the state's pursuit policy has not been reviewed for at least five years.

Lawyers are accusing the NSW Government of putting lives at risk by failing to respond to inquest recommendations and blocking the release of a new policy.

Tasmania, Queensland and Victoria have all radically scaled back their use of high-speed pursuit, but NSW's laws remain unchanged.

John Lambert is a road safety expert and he is calling for change.

"Based on the statistics, (NSW) pursues at the highest rate of any jurisdiction, it's a very high level of pursuits," he said.

"It's over twice the rate in Victoria, nearly three times the rate in Queensland.

"In fact the only jurisdiction that has a higher pursuit rate is Northern Territory."

At a recent inquest, NSW Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame questioned why updates to NSW's policy on high-speed chases have been delayed for more than five years.

The inquest examined the death of Dylan Maher, who died after a police chase in 2014.

In her findings, Ms Grahame said it was disappointing the new policy had not been reviewed five years after its slated review date.

Redfern Legal Centre senior solicitor David Porter, who represented the family of Dylan Maher, said the NSW Police Safe Driving Policy which governs pursuits is supposed to be reviewed yearly.

"This is a key policy in terms of the operational decisions that NSW Police Force officers make on our roads," he said.

"The decision to pursue somebody or not can have, as we see in these inquests, catastrophic consequences, not just for the person being pursued but for other road users and even police officers themselves."

NSW introduced its latest Safe Driving Policy in 2009 and promised a review in 2010, but no updated policy has been forthcoming.

"This is a policy which has the ability to influence whether or not lives are lost, and it is important that that policy be updated to take account of changes in NSW, changes to technology and changes in the organisational priorities of the NSW Police Force," Mr Porter said.

"There have been advancements in technology which the Police Force has been funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars to roll out, but we have a policy which does not yet incorporate these new features.

"We have things like automatic numberplate recognition, which drastically increases the police's ability to detect offenders on the road."

NSW Police accused of holding back new policy

A year ago, after the death of a toddler struck during a police chase, the NSW Government promised a new policy was on the way, but NSW Police elected not to release it.

David Porter said it was not clear why.

"We actually don't know when the police started reviewing the policy.

"They may have been reviewing it in 2010, it may have been stuck in review for quite some years.

"We don't know how long they have been in the review process, we only know that they haven't published a new policy yet."

He said it appeared NSW Police had an updated policy basically ready to go, but was yet to act.

"We don't know what the hold-up is. We simply do not understand why the policy hasn't been released."

NSW Police Minister Troy Grant declined an interview with the ABC, but a spokesperson said the NSW Police Safe Drivers Policy (SDP) was an operational document that did not need ministerial approval to be released.

"Some coronial reviews recommended a review of the SDP and some potential changes to the SDP," the spokesperson said.

"In light of these recommendations, the NSW Police Force conducted a two-stage, high-level review of the SDP and thoroughly considered the coronial recommendations.

"The NSW Government has recently responded to a number of coronial recommendations regarding police pursuits.

"Changes have been made to the SDP where considered appropriate, and the NSW Government understands the NSWPF is now looking at training and roll-out.

"The NSWPF continually assesses new technology that may assist them if they do not pursue an offender, or which may provide other ways of identifying drivers who fail to stop when directed.

NSW Police told the ABC it was not in a position to comment.