Speed, booze made crash ‘inevitable’

Charanjeev Kumar Chahal was driving 184 kilometres an hour and his blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit when he crossed the railway tracks at the east end of Eighth Street, hit rough pavement and rolled into a ditch.

His passenger, 27-year-old Gurdeep Singh, a new friend he’d just met that night, died at the scene. Chahal nearly died himself, suffering severe head trauma and spending more than a month in hospital.

Now, he has to wait to find out if he’ll be going to the federal penitentiary or a provincial jail. Chahal pleaded guilty Wednesday in Saskatoon provincial court to drunk driving causing death in relation to the Sept. 2, 2012, crash.

Chahal knows he’ll be deported to India when it’s over. He was in Canada on a work permit.

Crown prosecutor Gary Parker said he believes a federal sentence of two years is needed to send a message about drunk driving.

“There are too many people dying on our streets in this fashion,” he said. “There has been much publicity about drinking and driving, yet people still don’t get it and they still cause the senseless deaths of people like Mr. Singh.”

Chahal’s speed and high bloodalcohol reading meant some kind of accident was “inevitable,” Parker said.

“The driving here was reckless. There was a wanton disregard for human life,” he said.