Nearly five years after the monster pileup that left four people dead on Highway 440 in Laval, the victims’ relatives will finally be determined, on Friday, on the fate of the truck driver responsible for the tragedy.
• Read also: Fatal pile-up: at the wheel of his truck due to an error by the SAAQ
• Read also: Fatal pileup in Laval: armed (with a truck) and dangerous
Jagmeet Grewal stood trial for causing the death and injury of motorists on August 5, 2019 on Highway 440 in Laval.
At the time of the tragedy, he was driving his truck, even though he was not allowed to be behind the wheel.
He was traveling at nearly 100 km/h when he crashed into vehicles stopped at the Highway 15 ramp. He never braked, neither before nor after the impact, which caused fires. .
Photo Martin Alarie
Gilles Marsolais, 54, Michèle Bernier, 48, Sylvain Pouliot, 55, and Robert Tanguay Laplante, 26, died.
“Disaster predicted”
Tomorrow, Judge Yanick Laramée must render her decision at the Laval courthouse, whether or not the 57-year-old man is guilty of criminal negligence.
“It’s high time!” I think about it every day because there isn’t a day when I don’t have pain. Meanwhile, he can walk around as if nothing had happened,” said Patricia Laplante, who was seriously injured in the pileup.
If the latter was not physically fit enough to attend the trial, her mother, Diane Laplante, did not miss anything.
“I was so shocked to learn what really happened, to see the magnitude of it,” she said.
For the Crown, it is clear that the fatal pileup was a “catastrophe foretold”.
Jagmeet Grewal should never have been on the road at the time of the tragedy.
Archive photo
Involved in a road collision in 2012 in the United States, he was subsequently declared permanently unfit to work as a truck driver, notably due to psychiatric problems.
Despite these conclusions, he applied again for his license and obtained it… by mistake.
The different departments of the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec did not in fact speak to each other. Thus, he was granted his class 1 license, necessary to drive a truck, even if he was compensated due to his inability to be behind the wheel.
The SAAQ to blame?
According to the defense, represented by Mare Jean-Daniel Debkoski and Philipe Knerr, it is not Grewal who is to blame for this tragedy, but rather the SAAQ.
They are of the opinion that we cannot conclude that their client drove in a “dangerous” manner, since we do not know what happened in the driver’s cabin at the time of the tragedy.
The accused did not give his version of the facts at his trial. During the proceedings, however, he publicly proclaimed his innocence, saying he was a victim himself.
Archive photo
But for the Crown, by being behind the wheel, Grewal was as dangerous as a person “walking around with a gun.”
Mare Simon Blais, Lyly-Anne Ratelle and Alexis Marcotte Bélanger then referred to his state of health.
At that time, the trucker was neglecting to control his diabetes and was taking several medications that affected driving, such as painkillers, muscle relaxants and antidepressants.
A reasonable truck driver would have been aware of the risks his condition represented and would have refrained from getting behind the wheel, the prosecution argued.