Sukhvinder Singh Rai sentencing

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Update:

The truck driver involved in a crash that shut down the Burlington Skyway two years ago was sentenced to one year in jail today. However, the defence is considering an appeal.

David Lock represents Sukhvinder Singh Rai, the man who drove his dump truck with the bin raised into the Skyway bridge causing the Toronto-bound lanes to close for five-days back in July 2014. Along with the one year in jail sentence, Rai can’t drive for 3 years and was ordered to pay a $200 victim surcharge. Before his ruling, Justice Fred Campling said “we are all lucky no one was killed.”

There were no major injuries in the crash but the man driving a truck in the next lane wanted Rai to compensate him for the time he says he had to take off of work because of the accident, the crown did not seek restitution and the judge agreed.

Initially Rai faced four charges related to the crash: dangerous driving, mischief endangering life, and two counts of impaired driving. Though he was found not guilty of purposefully ramming the bridge both impaired driving charges were thrown out when it was ruled that breath samples taken by the OPP were inadmissible, because they were taken beyond the three hour time limit. Despite the fact that Rai blew nearly three times the legal limit. The judge said that when making his ruling he did take into consideration the smell of alcohol on Rai’s breath and noted the open bottle of liquor found in the truck.

Of his one year jail sentence he will likely only serve 8 months because of the provincially regulated early release provisions and he is able to apply for parole after just 4 months.