THE traffic lights at the corner of Industrial Drive and Tourle Street had been red for 22 seconds when Andrew Wayne O'Kane barreled into the intersection, slammed into a car turning right and killed 65-year-old Gwenneth Margaret Downey.
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It was a significant period of inattention; the lights had been red so long that one queue of traffic had already turned right from Tourle Street into Industrial Drive.
And then as O'Kane's Ford Territory Wagon approached the red light, Philip John Downey's Holden Astra led a queue of cars into the intersection bound for Tourle Street.
It was about 11.20am on July 24, 2017, and somehow O'Kane not only missed seeing the red light but failed to notice a car stopped in the lane next to him.
O'Kane's Territory slammed into the Holden Astra and pushed it into a truck, the impact killing Ms Downey and seriously injuring her husband.
And at first there seemed to be no explanation.
O'Kane told police after the crash that he thought the lights were green and said he had last smoked cannabis the day before the crash.
But forensic pathologist Dr Judith Pearl opined that the 0.32mg/L concentration of cannabis in his blood would have "impaired" O'Kane's driving ability and found the reading was so high that O'Kane would have smoked cannabis on the day of the crash.
"There is no explanation for his failure to see the lights were red other than inattention," Judge Tim Gartelmann, SC, said on Wednesday.
"The period of inattention is great and the only reasonable inference is that it reflects his impairment."
O'Kane pleaded guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death, causing bodily harm by misconduct and driving with an illicit drug in his system.
On Wednesday, O'Kane, who went into jail to begin serving his sentence last week, was jailed for a maximum of three-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of two years.
He will be eligible for parole in May, 2021.