Tyler Lock pleads guilty to mid-range drink-driving after crashing and colliding with petrol tanker

A young drink driver who crashed and then collided with a petrol tanker carrying 37,000 litres of fuel says he is having thoughts about the Grim Reaper.

A young drink-driver whose car was hit by a petrol tanker has sought counselling after having ‘silly thoughts about the Grim Reaper’, a court has heard.

Tyler Lock, 22, pleaded guilty to mid-range drink-driving in Tweed Heads Local Court to what was described as the near-catastrophic crash.

The court heard Lock had been drinking at a Coolangatta bar when he rolled his Troop Carrier on the Pacific Highway at Chinderah in the early hours of January 10 this year.

He told police he lost control of the vehicle after it hit a dividing barrier and rolled. It was then hit by a tanker carrying 37,000 litres of fuel.

Police arrived to find a person trapped, and Lock and a ‘visibly upset’ woman standing next to the vehicle.

Lock recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.112.

Defence lawyer Russell Baxter told the court that the crash ‘could have been catastrophic but it wasn’t’.

However, Mr Baxter said Lock ‘’hasn’t stopped thinking about it every night’ and had been having ‘a great deal of silly thoughts about the Grim Reaper’.

He said Lock had been questioning if ‘death is imminent for him’ after people told him ‘how serious this could have been’ and was undergoing psychological counselling.

“It wasn’t catastrophic, it was just a crash … (but) it was a very bad piece of driving,” Mr Baxter told the court.

Magistrate Michael Dakin said it was a ‘high-speed’ crash and ‘very serious’.

He noted that Lock had been fined for drink-driving last year but it had not deterred him.

Mr Dakin imposed an 18-month community correction order, including 100 hours of community service, and disqualified Lock from driving for nine months.

Lock will be able to apply for an alcohol interlock licence in October.