An 18-year-old woman was injured in a crash at the junction of Broadlands Rd and Miro St early on June 5. She and her partner, the driver, were returning to Taupo after a night out in Rotorua.
The woman, who lives in Rotorua, noticed her former boyfriend, Aaron Jordan Hohua Wilson, 20, “drifting off” to sleep on their way back to Taupo, where Wilson lives.
“We left Rotorua at about 3.30am. As we were travelling back to Taupo I was always looking at Aaron and he looked really tired,” she said.
“One of those times just before the accident, he was about to close his eyes. I then looked in front of me and saw that we were drifting on to the other side of the road. I then saw the light from a street light and then the pole and then we crashed.”
Wilson woke up seconds before the impact when she screamed, but he was unable to steer the vehicle away from the pole.
She said it all happened really quickly and she didn’t say anything to him before the crash because she was also tired and falling asleep.
The woman suffered a compound fracture to her right ankle, a fractured collarbone, a fractured spine and full laceration of the tib posterior.
She said Wilson didn’t suffer any serious injuries.
Wilson appeared in the Taupo District Court this week and pleaded guilty through his lawyer Phil Clarke to a charge of careless driving causing injury before a community magistrate.
Mr Clarke said his client had accepted responsibility for his actions and had also apologised to the passenger, but they were no longer together.
Because Wilson was not intoxicated when the crash occurred, Mr Clarke told community magistrate Jack Best “the appropriate consequence should be at the lower end as there was no alcohol involved”.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Andrew Allerton agreed with Mr Clarke that the level of carelessness was at the lower end of the scale.
Mr Best sentenced Wilson to 100 hours’ community work and disqualified him from holding or obtaining a driver’s licence for 9 months.
Wilson also pleaded guilty to a separate charge of operating a motor vehicle causing a sustained loss of traction. The consequences for that charge were also included in the sentence.
Automobile Association (AA) general manager of motoring affairs Mike Noon said according to crash analysis statistics, 7 per cent of reported crashes are caused from fatigue. He said that figure should be much higher because a lot of fatigue crashes go unreported.