Court orders new trial for turcker in fatal 401 pileup

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The Court of Appeal for Ontario has ordered a new trial in the case of a truck driver found guilty of causing a chain-reaction pileup on Highway 401, near Prescott, that killed a father and daughter.

Jamil Qureshi was found guilty in April 2021 of dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing bodily harm in the fatal crash.

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He was sentenced to three years in prison.

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Court heard that Qureshi, now 65, was driving his tractor trailer at 104 km/hr on cruise control for at least 90 seconds before slamming into the back of a row of vehicles that had slowed in front him on the evening of Nov. 27, 2017.

Qureshi attempted to brake just 0.25 seconds before impact.

The resulting collision involved five vehicles, and killed John Keeler, of Iroquois, Ont., his daughter, Tiffany, 20, and injured three other people.

The Keelers were on their way home from St. Lawrence College where Tiffany was studying to be a registered nurse.

The appeal court set aside Qureshi’s sentence and ordered a new trial in the case because of what it said were errors in law made by the trial judge, Superior Court Justice Adriana Doyle.

The appeal court said Doyle, in her decision, failed to explain how Qureshi’s driving represented a marked departure “from the standard of care that a reasonable person would show in the same circumstances.”

Qureshi’s lawyers had argued that his brief inattention to the road was a “momentary lapse,” and not the kind of marked departure from the norm that defines dangerous driving.

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The appeal court ruled the trial judge failed to provide sufficient analysis of Qureshi’s faults as a driver, and how they amounted to dangerous driving, rather than mere inattention.

A new trial date has yet to be set.

During Qureshi’s initial trial, court heard that traffic had slowed to about 40 km/hr in the right, eastbound lane of Highway 401 after a trucker “rubbernecked” to view a crash cleanup taking place in the westbound lanes.

That truck was the first in a line of four vehicles. The vehicle immediately behind it put on its four-way flashers.

Qureshi’s transport truck was the fifth vehicle in the lane, and failed to stop in time to prevent a high-speed collision with the Dodge pickup truck being driven by John Keeler. Qureshi’s cruise control was still engaged at the time of the crash.

His defence team suggested Qureshi may have been checking his mirror in order to switch lanes, temporarily distracting him from the slowed traffic ahead of him.

Court heard the crash occurred on a dry, clear evening on a flat, straight stretch of road.

In her decision in the case, Doyle said Qureshi failed to react to warning signs on the highway, and took “absolutely no action” until the last possible moment.

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“This case is more than just carelessness,” Doyle said. “As a professional driver with five years of experience travelling on a major highway frequented and travelled by numerous vehicles, a reasonable driver who is driving a heavy truck that can be extremely deadly to others on the highway must drive with the standard of care expected of him.”

The truck driver who initiated the slowdown by rubbernecking has never been identified.

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