Plea spares families compounded grief Posted: 7:00 PM CST Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/01/2019 (2215 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jaskirat Singh Sidhu is powerless to change the events of the sunny, horrific afternoon last April when he drove a semi-trailer truck through a stop sign and smashed into a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team. But in a Saskatchewan courtroom on Tuesday, he did what he could to make it easier for people grieving the young men and woman who were killed. It was the least, and the most, he could do.

With five words — “I plead guilty, Your Honour” — the trucker indicated he wouldn’t pursue his right to a trial.

His lawyer later said, “Mr. Sidhu advised me: ‘I don’t want to make things any worse. I can’t make things any better, but I certainly don’t want to make them worse by having a trial.’”

Had Mr. Sidhu put his personal future first, he could have pleaded not guilty and instructed his lawyer to try to beat the charges. There is substantial evidence that could have been crafted into a case calling for Mr. Sidhu’s acquittal, or at least leniency in sentencing.

First, there is a 70-page safety review completed for the Saskatchewan government last month, which said sight lines at the intersection of Highway 35 and Highway 335, where the crash occurred, are poor because a stand of trees and a farm building obstruct the view.

The report also noted sun glare at the time of the crash, about 4:50 p.m., could have made it hard to see the stop sign.

By declining to call evidence in his favour, Mr. Sidhu spared Broncos families the ordeal of a long trial that likely would have included gruesome details, photographs and video images.

The consideration was appreciated by some of those directly affected by the tragedy. The family of 21-year-old Logan Boulet said in a statement, “As much as this sounds crazy, we appreciate his remorsefulness.”

There is a primal human desire to find positive ramifications in tragedies. We search for something good to come from such an inexplicable, haphazard event.

One positive result is that eight months after the crash, Saskatchewan introduced mandatory training for semi-truck drivers, addressing concerns Mr. Sidhu had received inadequate instruction. Starting in March, drivers seeking a Class 1 commercial licence in that province will be required to undergo at least 121.5 hours of training. Alberta is also making standardized training mandatory for new commercial truckers and bus drivers as of March 1. The Manitoba government is meeting with the trucking industry this month about the possibility of requiring new drivers to receive more training.

A second positive result is less tangible, but perhaps more universal. The horror of the Broncos crash might reinforce the message that drivers must remain vigilant at all times when behind the wheel. Rolling through stop signs — a Manitoba tradition, some might argue — ignoring speed limits and ill-considered decisions to text while driving are behaviours that continue to be far too common despite law enforcement’s best efforts to curtail them.

After the sentencing hearing, which begins Jan. 28, Mr. Sidhu will likely be jailed, but there’s an important difference between him and the criminals with whom he will be incarcerated. He didn’t choose to commit a crime; his was a momentary lapse of judgment that had catastrophic consequences.

He might eventually be released from prison, but it’s a sure bet the remorse Mr. Sidhu feels will be unending. In a way, he’s already serving a life sentence.