A sleeping truck driver has dodged time behind bars despite nodding off north of Canberra and putting a woman in a wheelchair, effectively giving the victim "a life sentence".
"That no one was killed in this collision is remarkable, given the carnage depicted on the dashcam," magistrate Roger Clisdell said in Queanbeyan Local Court, describing footage of the incident as "chilling".
Mr Clisdell made the remarks on Tuesday as he sentenced David Cameron, 60, to a nine-month intensive correction order over an April 2022 crash that injured five people on the Barton Highway.
Cameron, from Bendoc in Victoria, had been driving for nearly eight hours, excluding a breakfast break, by the time his logging truck came up behind a row of cars that had stopped because of roadworks at Wallaroo.
Dashcam footage from the prime mover revealed Cameron would have had a clear view of the traffic for about 350 metres before hitting a Toyota Kluger driven by Ashleigh Allred, had he been paying attention.
But the veteran truckie failed to keep a proper lookout and, without braking, rear-ended the car carrying Ms Allred and her two sons at roughly 63kmh.
Mr Clisdell found Cameron, who was later diagnosed with sleep apnoea, had most likely fallen asleep at the wheel.
The collision shunted Ms Allred's vehicle forwards into other stationary cars and injured four people inside them.
Their ailments were thankfully minor compared to those suffered by Ms Allred, who sustained a laundry list of serious injuries and is now a paraplegic.
"Pending some medical miracle, she will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life," Mr Clisdell said.
Cameron's sentence proceedings began earlier this month, after he pleaded guilty to negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and four counts of causing bodily harm by misconduct while in charge of a motor vehicle.
The magistrate referred on Tuesday to a "compelling and emotional" victim impact statement read aloud four weeks ago by Ms Allred, who told the court "my life, as I knew it, died that day".
"Although Ms Allred was not killed, she has effectively received a life sentence," Mr Clisdell said, addressing the victim directly at one stage to tell her he, "like everyone else in this case", was sorry about her situation.
However, the magistrate said the justice system could not change the position she was in.
In deciding to impose an intensive correction order, Mr Clisdell cited cases in which negligent drivers had killed people but not been incarcerated.
While this matter did not involve death and instead centred on what he said was almost the worst imaginable case of grievous bodily harm, Mr Clisdell could not be satisfied full-time imprisonment was the only appropriate penalty.
The magistrate concluded Cameron, a volunteer firefighter who will live in Delegate, NSW, while serving his sentence, was unlikely to reoffend.
"[Cameron] has told his counsel that he will never drive trucks again," Mr Clisdell said.
He also accepted Cameron was genuinely remorseful, had excellent prospects of rehabilitation and did not present a danger to the community.
Mr Clisdell reached these conclusions despite being "concerned" Cameron had given police a "plainly false" story at the scene of the crash, where the offender lied about cars stopping suddenly and his foot bouncing off the brakes.
As part of his sentence, Cameron will be subject to supervision by community corrections staff.
Mr Clisdell also disqualified Cameron from driving for 18 months, beginning when police suspended his licence after the crash.
That means Cameron will be eligible to regain his driver's licence this October.
