A YOUNG Wodonga man killed in a crash last year tried to avoid a car that had crossed to the wrong side of the road, a court has heard.
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Detective Sen-Constable Rob Hay said Andrew Powell, 24, was travelling at just 10 km/h when his Toyota Corolla was hit by a white Commodore, driven by Stephen Robins, 42.
Robins, of Corowa, through his barrister Diarmaid McGann, yesterday argued he may have blacked out with heat stroke on a day when his car’s airconditioning was not working.
But he was committed to trial for dangerous and culpable driving causing death.
The crash occurred on the Barnawartha-Howlong Road on February 9 last year.
Accident reconstruction expert Detective Sen-Sergeant Peter Ballion told the second day of the committal hearing Robins had “failed to negotiate” a curve after a 500-metre straight stretch.
“There’s nothing on the road to indicate any sharp steering before the collision,” Sen-Sergeant Ballion said.
Police were unable to interview Robins for more than two months because he was too unwell in hospital to talk.
Sen-Constable Hay said when he had spoken to a wheelchair-bound Robins at the Epworth Hospital in Melbourne, the accused said he had almost no memory of the crash, or the hours before it.
“He recollects leaving his friend’s house where he was staying in Corowa in the morning, he remembers driving somewhere with his daughter,” Sen-Con stable Hay said.
“But pretty much, he doesn’t remember anything else apart from waking up on the roadside.”
The court heard the anti-anxiety drug Xanax was detected in Robins’ blood after the accident but Mr McGann said it was a therapeutic dose and there was no evidence to suggest it had affected his driving.
Robins has been granted bail and will appear at a directions hearing at the Wodonga County Court in December.