A 20-year-old man who caused a three-car crash on Highway 1 in Burnaby after weaving in and out of traffic at high speeds without signalling has been granted a conditional discharge with 20 months of probation for dangerous driving.
Jin Kang was in Vancouver provincial court Tuesday and pleaded guilty to one count of dangerous driving in relation to the incident just before 9 p.m. on Sept. 10, 2022.
A video presented in court appeared to show Kang, then 18 years old and still an N driver, trying to "shoot the gap" between two vehicles at high speed before hitting them both, according to B.C. provincial court Judge Reginald Harris.
Kang's BMW was going about 170 kilometres per hour at the time, and he didn't apply the brakes at all before impact, according to agreed facts presented by Crown prosecutor Louise Gauld.
All three vehicles were totalled in the crash, and the occupants of the other vehicles were "very traumatized," sustaining soft-tissue injuries that took months to heal according to Gauld – but things could have ended much worse.
"It's very lucky that no one was significantly injured or killed in this incident considering the amount of traffic on the street that night and the hour involved," Gauld said.
Drugs and alcohol were not factors in the crash, according to the facts.
Gauld called for a suspended sentence with 18 months of probation with house arrest and a curfew and a two- to three-year driving ban.
She said the "stigma of a criminal record" was needed to deter others from acting like Kang.
Defence lawyer Cathryn Moore, however, said her client should get a conditional discharge with 18 months of probation, meaning he wouldn't have a criminal record if he successfully completed his probation.
Moore argued a criminal record at such a young age would drastically impact the trajectory of Kang's life.
Judge Harris ultimately sided with Moore on the conditional discharge but extended the probation period to 20 months.
As aggravating factors, Harris noted the "extremely high rate of speed" Kang was driving and his decision to "shoot the gap" between the two vehicles on the busy highway, a decision that could easily have set off a chain reaction, Harris said.
But Harris also noted Kang was young, had pleaded guilty, was remorseful, had the support of his family and didn't have a criminal record or even so much as a ticket on his driving record.
"You've made a horrible, horrible mistake," Harris told Kang, "…but this doesn't define who you are. You're going to define who you are going forward."
During his probation, Kang will be under house arrest for eight months and a 6 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew for eight months.
Harris also handed Kang a two-year driving ban and ordered him to complete 100 hours of community work by Nov. 13, 2025.
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