Road to Justice: Leigh and Lynette Lyall join campaign for mandatory jail time for killer drivers

Leigh and Lynette Lyall were left with a life sentence when their children died in a crash. The other driver lost his licence for 18 months.

Leigh and Lynette Lyall, the parents of Troy and Shanae – who were both killed in a Yorke Peninsula road crash in 2011. Picture: Greg Higgs

Everyone connected to a fatal road crash suffers in some way, but Leigh and Lynette Lyall have endured more than most.

Their beloved children, Troy and Shanae, died in a single October 2011 crash caused by the poor, inattentive driving of Adrian O’Daniel.

“When we lost our kids, our family tree was severed – there’s no continuation for us, and that’s an extra burden,” Lynette said.

The couple’s salvation was a pact they made the night after their unfathomable loss.

“We wrote it down, and we read it out, that we were just going to stick together, through all of this, forever – that we’d never leave the other to deal with it alone,” Leigh says.

That strength, and their love, has carried them through ever since, even as reports of new road fatalities have tested their emotional resolve.

“You instantly think of what the latest family is going through and the stuff they’ll have to deal with in court,” Leigh said.

“You wonder whether their case is clear-cut or if they’re like us, and still don’t have the full story of what happened.

Brother and sister Troy and Shanae Lyall died in a car crash on the Bute to Kadina road near Bute, in 2011.

“You hope it’s going to be as smooth as possible for them, because you know it’s never going to be smooth.”

Charged with causing Troy and Shanae’s deaths by dangerous driving, and having injured two others, O’Daniel plea-bargained his case down to aggravated driving without due care.

His seven-month sentence was suspended via a two-year, $500 bond and an 18-month driving ban – without him ever having to explain how or why he lost control of the car.

“We still feel ripped off … he killed our kids, and the sentence he got just doesn’t feel fair compared to what he’s done,” Leigh said.

“Whether it’s dangerous driving or driving without due care, he’s still taken two young lives away – and the penalty was not anywhere near enough.”

Despite their tenacity, the couple have never truly recovered from that additional blow, and nor has the Kadina community.

“We couldn’t believe the effect it had on people around here, people we didn’t even know before the kids died,” Leigh said.

“You don’t realise how far the ripple effect spreads out through people in the community.”

The Lyalls have joined The Advertiser’s campaign for parliament to set sentencing standards for aggravated causing death by dangerous driving.

Adrian O’Daniel was convicted over the crash that killed the Lyalls’ children.

“The day you accept your driver’s licence is the day you accept there’s a community standard of driving and that it’s your sole responsibility to keep to the law,” Lynette said.

“It’s a choice to drink-drive, it’s a choice to take drugs and drive, it’s a choice to speed, it’s a choice to drive erratically.

“That’s why there needs to be sentencing standards for the offence, and why all of those elements need to be considered by judges in sentencing.”

The couple want drivers to serve a minimum five-year licence disqualification per death and, in cases where prison is deemed inappropriate, home detention sentences be imposed.

“We place our trust in drivers to get us from A to B, and innocent young lives are taken by stupidity and carelessness through no fault of their own,” Lynette said.

“We just feel so frustrated there have been all these deaths and no real shift in sentencing … it’s been all about the perpetrators, and the victims have been forgotten.”

They also want bail conditions for alleged killer drivers toughened, banning them from the road as soon as they are charged.

“When it’s absolutely clear the person was the driver, where there’s no grey area, there’s absolutely no reason for them to be on the road until the case is decided,” she said.

“If they’re charged with causing death by dangerous driving they shouldn’t be on the road – not for any circumstance.”

Shanae was 15 when she died.

Lynette and Leigh Lyall with photos of their children, Troy and Shanae.

She conceded no sentence could ever replace a lost life, but said she “cringed” when people criticised victims for seeking legislative change.

“No sentence ever ‘covers it’, but not all drivers are remorseful nor seem to really comprehend what they’ve done,” she said.

“They are, in court, coming from a position of looking to save their own skin.”

Leigh said that offenders were able to move on with their lives while the families of victims were left “picking up the pieces”.

“You just take each day as it comes, then something will be said that triggers a memory or emotions and you’re stuffed for the entire day,” he said.

“People say ‘I don’t know how you do it, how you go on’ – we have to do it, otherwise you just go down.”

Originally published as Road to Justice: Leigh and Lynette Lyall join campaign for mandatory jail time for killer drivers