A West Vancouver woman has been sentenced in a New Zealand court for causing a crash that seriously injured several passengers, most of them teenagers.
Renee Kelly Vanry, 57, appeared in Tauranga District Court on March 27 where she pleaded guilty to four counts of careless driving causing injury, for the wounds sustained by four of her passengers, and another careless driving charge for the manoeuver that caused the crash.
According to a report from the New Zealand Herald, Vanry was driving 11 Canadian field hockey players aged 15 to 17 in a two-week tour of the country.
At sentencing, Vanry was banned from driving for six months and ordered to pay $1,000 for emotional harm to each of the four victims, and another $1,500 for emotional harm to the other driver, according to a statement from Senior Sgt. Fane Troy of Taupo Police.
At around 10:30 a.m. on March 23, officers were alerted to a two-vehicle collision on State Highway 5, Troy said in the statement.
Vanry was driving a van and was attempting to overtake a slower vehicle near a left-hand bend with less than 100 metres of visibility. Her vehicle was still on the opposite side of the road when a Jeep rounded the corner and collided with the van, Troy said.
The force of the impact caused the van to become airborne, landing backwards in a ditch across the road. Neither driver was hurt, but four passengers in the van suffered a range of serious injuries and another seven were assessed and discharged that day, the police sergeant said.
Opposite-lane driving habit contributed to crash, lawyer says
Of the four who were seriously harmed, one has flown back to Canada, with another returning home this week while two remain in hospital. All face “many months” of recovery, Troy said.
“Ms. Vanry has taken responsibility for her actions, which has allowed the judicial process to be expedited. Her misjudgment has had a profound effect on the lives of her passengers, the other driver, and her own,” Troy said.
The worst of the injuries included a 17-year-old who suffered a spinal injury and had to have surgery to remove half of her pancreas. Another teen requires major knee surgery when she returns to Canada.
Originally, Vanry faced six additional charges careless driving causing injuries, but the prosecutor asked for those to be withdrawn after the accused’s guilty plea and her deep remorse expressed in court.
As reported by the Herald, Vanry’s lawyer David Pawson said she had a “momentary lapse in judgment,” when her natural reflex – which comes from driving on the opposite side of the road in Canada – was to steer in the wrong direction while attempting to avoid the oncoming vehicle.
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