A man accused of driving without due care in the fatal crash involving a teen pedestrian took the stand Thursday afternoon, with the testimony at times emotional and other times tense.
Paul Oliver Wong’s testimony was the only evidence delivered in his defence case following nearly four days of evidence from prosecutors.
Legal counsel for Fernanda Girotto’s family said the family was still “devastated” by the 15-year-old’s death. Yun Li-Reilly said the family is watching the proceedings closely from Brazil, with help from the law firm.
She added that the trial is resurfacing the family’s pain, and the family is struggling with not being able to attend the trial.
While interviewed by his own lawyer, David Fai, Wong’s testimony was sombre, and he stifled tears as he recalled Girotto “gurgling” as he checked her for a pulse. The Brazilian exchange student was struck by both Wong’s Dodge Dakota and Kai Man Cheu’s Toyota Camry in a crosswalk at the foot of Cariboo Road hill on Jan. 17, 2018.
In his testimony, Wong said he “diligently” checked for pedestrians as he expected to enter the crosswalk. He said he drove Cariboo Road enough to be “familiar” with the route, which he described as “poorly lit.”
Crown prosecutors pressed Wong on his testimony, however, and the interaction became tense, particularly around Wong’s memory of Cheu’s car hitting Girotto. Earlier in the day, the court heard a recording of the 911 call in which Wong told the operator he couldn’t find Girotto because another car hit her.
But in his testimony, Wong said he wasn’t aware a second car hit Girotto. He told the court he saw Cheu pulled over ahead and thought Cheu was only stopping to help.
Things grew especially tense as prosecutor Geordie Proulx confronted Wong over whether he checked the crosswalk for pedestrians. Proulx repeatedly suggested to Wong the 47-year-old did not adequately look for pedestrians, while Wong repeatedly disagreed.
Wong’s testimony followed evidence from City of Burnaby engineer Douglas Louie who testified on probes from the city on how to handle the intersection. In November 2017, he said the city had conducted a review of a nearby intersection at Cariboo Road and Cariboo Drive. That review also studied, to a lesser degree, the crosswalk where Girotto died.
Louie told the court the city was following a guideline from the Transportation Association of Canada, which quantifies how to justify adding pedestrian controls at a crosswalk. According to the guideline, a city should add a crosswalk when there are, on average, 15 pedestrians crossing per hour over a seven-hour period and 15,000 vehicles passing through per day.
By contrast, only three pedestrians were seen crossing at the crosswalk per hour on a May day in 2017, Louie said.
Defence sought to diminish the evidence, suggesting a single day of evidence-gathering was not sufficient, but Louie pushed back, saying staff deliberately chose a spring day with nice weather and looked at peak hours to maximize the pedestrian count.
As a result of the November 2017 study, a radar speed sign, which tells drivers how fast they are going, was set up on Jan. 9, 2018, just eight days before Girotto was killed.
Defence pressed Louie on whether the city’s actions were adequate, considering two more people were hit by cars in the area of the crosswalk, including a pedestrian and a cyclist, within four days of Girotto’s death.
Louie said the city added safety measures to the crosswalk – an additional sign alerting drivers to the crosswalk and a pedestrian-controlled flashing light to alert drivers of coming pedestrians – just a couple of weeks later. A year after that, a full traffic light system was added to the intersection.
Cheu was not in court and did not testify, and his defence did not call any evidence.
All three cases have now wrapped up, and lawyers are seeking to set a date for closing remarks. It’s not clear if that will come before the end of the year.
