‘You could’ve killed someone’: Sarnia man jailed for dangerous crash

Kyle Fraser didn’t hurt or kill anyone when he crashed a pickup truck and took out a traffic pole near Sarnia’s Centennial Park on a busy summer evening.

But he easily could have, a judge pointed out as he sentenced the 21-year-old Sarnia man to two months in jail.

“You could’ve killed someone,” Justice Mark Poland said. “You could’ve killed a child driving in this state.”

The prosecutor previously pointed out the area where Fraser, 19 at the time, crashed the white Dodge Ram on July 3, 2021, is a popular area for families to walk by the waterfront and get ice cream. The court heard then Fraser doesn’t remember much of what happened due to how intoxicated he was that Saturday evening, but after crashing into the pole at Exmouth and Front streets he told several bystanders he was there for ice cream, too.

But Fraser also told the confused and concerned people standing near the broken-down pickup at the popular park he didn’t have a driver’s license and had to get out of there. He fled east – past the ice creamery – until a group of citizens chased him down and tackled him near the entrance to Sarnia police headquarters.

They held him there until an officer came outside and arrested him.

“Bystanders who were at the scene of this collision really deserve some kudos,” Poland said.

Fraser, though, was unco-operative with the police, repeatedly threatening to either fight or sue them, and refused to give them a sample of his breath. That was one of the six charges they laid, a list that grew to eight after they learned the pickup had been taken from his former boss’s home without his permission.

In late April, 21 months after the crash, Fraser pleaded guilty to the refusal charge along with one count of dangerous driving, but his sentencing was adjourned to get a pre-sentence report.

“I must say, Mr. Fraser, this is a very serious matter you’re being sentenced for,” Poland said recently as the case returned to court. “I think you understand, as the Crown has said, you might well have killed somebody in this state.”

The pre-sentence report pointed to Fraser’s troubled childhood, which included running away from home as a youngster. Sarnia police put out a missing-person report for him in 2013 when the then-10-year-old abruptly left PE McGibbon school without warning.

He dabbled in drugs as a teen, but drinking a large amount of alcohol in a short span after work on July 3, 2021, fueled his dangerous drive through Sarnia. The incident started around 8 pm, with complaints about the Ram speeding, swerving, and weaving in and out of traffic on Lakeshore Road, a busy residential route with a 50 km-an-hour speed limit.

His truck was reported to be traveling at least double that speed and it nearly tipped over while swaying, the court heard. The wild ride came to an end in a grassy area off Front Street shortly after crashing into the metal pole.

“Due to the extent of damage at the scene, Bluewater Power was kept busy returning the intersection to normal until the following morning,” Sarnia police said at the time.

Fraser wasn’t ordered to pay restitution, since the police didn’t provide any documentation, assistant Crown attorney Aniko Coughlan told the judge. But Poland’s sentence did include a one-year driving ban and probation order on top of the jail time.

“Sorry for my actions and I hope to move forward,” Fraser said from the courtroom’s prisoner’s box when given a chance to address the court.

All other ugly charges at the time were dropped.

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@ObserverTerry