An OPP officer was called to the stand in the trial of a truck driver accused in a fatal crash on Highway 400.
The Crown called OPP Const. Ron Van Deursen who specializes in analyzing GPS data on Friday. He had the job of looking at Geoff Quigley's GPS shortly after the crash in 2014.
The Crown re-traced Quigley's route from Sudbury to Toronto on March 5, 2014, the day of the crash.
Van Deursen told the court how GPS records not only location, but also speed.
He found that on the day of the crash there was nothing unusual.
“There's no significant change in speed," he testified.
Quigley was hauling 70,000 pounds of lumber when it rear ended a van in the northbound lanes of the highway, near Line 4 in Innisfil. The van went through the guardrail, hitting Karron Derbyshire-Mitchell’s minivan.
Derbyshire-Mitchell died a day later in hospital.
Van Deursen said that there was only a single instance during the trip where the truck was travelling much beyond 105 km/h.
"I found it to be on Highway 400 southbound in the Town of Coldwater. There's a significant southbound hill. That would explain, in my view, why he would exceed a governed speed."
The defence pointed to the GPS data to show a number of points where the truck would have had to have stopped. Van Deursen confirmed that data.
The Crown also questioned a Ministry of Transportation officer who charged Quigley in 2013 with driving a commercial motor vehicle with a major defect.
The MTO officer told the court that Quigley's inspection notes at the time didn't outline any major or minor defects with the vehicle.
"It tells me that he knew there were defects because he didn't check it off," testified Andy Choglozade.
Quigley will return to court on Monday.
