A Maple Ridge man pleaded guilty in Prince George Provincial Court on Sept. 9 to the Motor Vehicle Act charge of driving without due care and attention after a pre-Christmas crash in 2022 that killed a 60-year-old man.
Judge Judith Doulis agreed to the joint Crown and defence sentencing proposal and ordered Donald Robert Crossman to spend the next 12 months on probation, pay a $300 victim surcharge by Sept. 9, 2026 and pay a $2,000 fine by Sept. 9, 2028. Under the probation, Crossman is only allowed to be in the driver’s seat of a vehicle for the purpose of driving to and from work.
The Crown stayed the Motor Vehicle Act charge of excessive speeding relative to conditions.
“David Smith's death was tragic, no sentence I could impose on Donald Crossman could ever bring him back to his family and no sentence, no matter how punitive, can reflect his value to his loved ones or assuage their pain or loss,” Doulis said in her ruling. “Where there is death, there really can be no reparation for the harm done to the victim.”
An agreed statement of facts said Valemount RCMP received a call at 9:22 a.m. on Dec. 23, 2022 about a collision on Highway 16, northeast of Valemount, near the Lucerne campground turnoff. It took officers until 9:55 a.m. to arrive due to finishing other calls and the poor winter conditions.
They found three, single-occupant vehicles: a Dodge Ram 2500 driven by Crossman, Chevrolet Equinox by Smith and a Honda Civic. Crossman and the Civic driver both suffered minor injuries, but Smith was dead.
An RCMP crash reconstruction expert determined Crossman’s Ram was travelling 88 to 95 kilometres-per-hour and the Equinox and Civic 94-97 km-h. Crossman steered the westbound Ram left, then right and collided with the Equinox in the eastbound lane.
Crossman’s lawyer Scott Wright said his client, who has worked in logging, fibreglass, construction and trucking, was returning home from Jasper, Alta., but conditions worsened when he entered BC. He said there was no evidence of impaired driving, fatigue or distraction.
Crossman told police his vision was obscured by blowing snow when he did not notice a semi truck slowing down in front of him. When he noticed the truck, he applied the brakes and slid into oncoming traffic, hitting the Equinox head-on and subsequently the Civic.
Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bowick read victim impact statements from Smith’s daughter Tara Elliott, son Matthew Smith and his widow, Carrie Woodman-Smith.
Elliott said her father’s death “shattered our lives.”
“I cannot stress enough what you've done to me, my children and my family,” said Elliott’s letter, directed at Crossman. “My dad was a person you will never forget, so full of life, always remembered by everyone who met him. He worked all his life, serving in the Royal Welsh military under the late Queen Elizabeth for over 30 years to going on to a school bus driver just to give back something to the Canadian people for welcoming him.”
Son Matthew said the crash affected “a multitude of lives because of one person's impatient and selfish decision making.”
“[My father] had a wife, four children, 12 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and a whole army of friends from whom he was stolen on that day,” he wrote.
Woodman-Smith had been married to Smith only three years. She recalled they had plans to finish Christmas shopping, but he was more than two hours late in returning home. Then the doorbell rang and she answered the door. It was a police officer with horrible news about her husband.
“I have wished so many times since this happened that I was in the vehicle with him so I could have gone as well, for the life I'm going to live without David is not one I ever would have wished for,” Woodman-Smith wrote. “You have forever linked me and his family to your story, Mr. Crossman, in the most tragic way possible. I still just can't wrap my head around why.”
