Semi-truck driver acquitted of fatal 2019 West Kelowna crash

Gilles Laferriere will never be able to put the events of June 14, 2019 behind him.

That’s the night a semi-truck driven by Harvinder Singh Toor rammed into the back of the vehicle he was in while it waited for the light to turn green at Highway 97 and Bartley Road in West Kelowna.

Laferriere said he was forever changed and the driver, his colleague, Kaarlo Siirila, was killed.

This week, more than three years after the crash, Toor was acquitted of all criminal charges related to that incident and for Laferriere it was as though the trial never happened at all. He is exactly where he was before it started.

“I will never be the same,” Laferriere said.

“I am suffering with neck injuries, and I have to keep my cane with me. I wear a scarf around my neck all the time (for support) and I have a stupid bone that sticks out of my chest that got crushed.… I can’t lay on my stomach at all.”

He said he went to every day of the trial in hopes that he would learn more about what happened that night but the legal process fell short of that goal. Not only did it get pushed back years as the pandemic played out, but it also didn’t give him all the insights he wanted.

He found out that Toor was driving in excess of 90 km/hour when he fell asleep at the wheel and rammed into his vehicle.

He never even got an apology.

“The only thing I ever got for him is ‘good morning,’” he said. “At least recognize what happened, say, ‘I’m sorry it happened.’ There was nothing.”

1:07 Driver walks away from fiery West Kelowna crash

In the aftermath of the crash, RCMP said the semi-truck, operated by Toor, failed to stop for the red light while driving at full speed, westbound at Highway 97, at 2 a.m. The vehicle was pushed about 100 metres down the road, crushing the back end all the way into the front seats.

Toor was not injured and it took a year for charges to be laid and two more for the trial to start, then finish.

At the time, Sgt. Bryce Petersen, the Kelowna RCMP integrated road safety unit commander, called the incident a “Humboldt-type crash,” referring to the semi-truck that struck the Humboldt Broncos’ team bus in Saskatchewan on April 6, 2018, killing 16 and injuring 13.

At the conclusion of the trial, however, the judge said that Toor couldn’t have known he was going to fall asleep, thus not meeting the bar set for dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing bodily harm.