A Vancouver man has been prohibited from driving for three years after he was found guilty of dangerous driving causing death for a fatal collision on Highway 97 near McLeese Lake nearly five years ago.
William Bradford Slubowski, 74, was also sentenced to three years probation with a suspended sentence by provincial court judge Elizabeth Bayliff during a hearing last week.
In April 2014, Bayliff found Slubowski guilty of the offence, as well as one count of dangerous driving causing bodily harm from a Jan. 26, 2011 incident in which the truck and trailer he was driving crossed over the centre line and struck an oncoming pickup truck.
Just as Slubowski was steering the semi back into the correct lane, the pickup's driver tried to avoid the collision by swerving left and around the truck. But the semi's front right bumper hit the pickup's passenger side.
The pickup's driver was seriously injured while her fiance, who was in the passenger seat, was killed.
During a trial in Williams Lake, Crown prosecution argued Slubowski had been falling asleep at the wheel while Slubowski said he had entered the oncoming lane to regain control of his trailer which was sliding sideways.
Slubowski said the road was clear for a long distance ahead and he took a calculated risk and while there was a collision, he acted in a reasonable and prudent manner.
Based largely on the testimony of four occupants in a pickup truck that was following Slubowski, as well as inconsistencies in his own testimony, Bayliff rejected his story.
The witnesses who had been following his truck said he had been weaving and crossing the line for at least three kilometres prior to the collision.
At that time, Slubowski had more than 50 years of experience as a truck driver but was retired and had not driven a commercial vehicle for about three months.
His son, who also lives in Vancouver, was a sub-contractor for a parcel delivery service, transporting freight between Prince George and Richmond.
About a day and a half before the collision, his son had asked him to help out by driving a truck from Prince George because the driver he had working for him in Prince George was unavailable due to a family crisis. Slubowski agreed because he knew his son risked losing the contract.
The plan was for the two to drive up to Prince George, with the son behind the wheel, where Slubowski would take over the truck based in this city and drive it south to Richmond, then return to Prince George the next day.
Slubowski also convinced a friend, also licensed to drive a transport truck, to come along although the friend testified his intention was not to act as a co-driver but to keep Slubowski company.
The friend testified that he was in the truck's sleeper on the trip back to Richmond, when somewhere near Boston Bar he heard a loud crash. He said Slubowski told him an oncoming vehicle veered towards the centreline and a ladder or a piece of lumber sticking out hit the semi's side mirror.
On the way back up to Prince George during the early morning, they ran into thick fog just north of Cache Creek and the friend got out of the sleeper to help Slubowski.
He found the truck angled across the two northbound lanes heading for the centre line so he grabbed the steering wheel and steered back to the right and together they "walked" the rig up the hill, in a very low gear and at a very low speed.
The friend then got behind the wheel and drove until just north of Williams Lake where he pulled over because his eyes were burning.
He testified that he offered to finish the drive to Prince George once he had an hour or two of sleep but Slubowski, who had been on the phone with his son, insisted they keep going and took over at that point.
The collision occurred about 40 minutes later on a long, curving, downhill portion of Highway 97, known as MacAlister Hill, just north of McLeese Lake.
