A 30-year-old man who may have been driving at 100mph before hitting the occupants of a motorcycle head-on while overtaking illegally in the Laurentians has recently been found guilty of dangerous driving.
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“This is not a moment of inattention, recklessness or a simple misjudgment. His actions and conduct go beyond civil misconduct. They are criminal in nature,” judge Simon B. Dolci ruled.
At the Saint-Jérôme courthouse, he found Olivier Barbeau guilty of two counts of dangerous driving causing risk of injury.
The driver was speeding in a BMW on Route 329 in the Lachute sector in July 2021 when he left the lane and went in the opposite direction.
Far from the limit
Barbeau “applied the brakes with force but caused a side impact with the motorcycle, thereby causing bodily harm to his two passengers,” the guilty verdict states.
The driver of the motorcycle and his approximately 30-year-old passenger subsequently suffered serious injuries, as the QMI agency reported at the time.
Using a mathematical formula, an investigator estimated that the driver was traveling between 84 and 100 mph (134 to 161 km/h) before slowing down. However, the limit was 90 km/h.
According to the evidence received by the court, Barbeau made an initial overtaking maneuver in heavy traffic. And the violent collision occurred during another maneuver.
Not trustworthy
Both the court and prosecutors also agreed that Olivier Barbeau’s testimony explaining the tragedy was “evolutionary, predictable, contradictory and in no way credible.”
In particular, contrary to the witness statement, the defendant asserted that he did not overtake while driving unless a parked driver who received a ticket was in front of him.
He claimed to have carried out the maneuver in question 4.6 km from the impact site before arbitrarily correcting this distance to 3.6 km.
In addition, the BMW’s brake pedal suddenly broke and caused acceleration instead, the driver claimed.
Gold, “[r]Mechanical inspection revealed no evidence of a fault that would justify the sudden acceleration. “Specifically, the defendant claims that it was because of the carpet that moved and got stuck over the accelerator pedal,” explains the judge, pointing out another contradiction by the perpetrator.
The Olivier Barbeau case is due back in court on January 16th.
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