Springfield Lakes woman Lali Nagaraj’s attempt at 3-point turn on M5 ends up in terror crash

A Springfield woman who missed her usual exit because of roadworks attempted to make a u-turn on a 100km/h road, causing serious injury to another road user, a court has heard.

Lali Nagaraj outside the Ipswich courthouse on June 25, 2024. Picture: Grace Koo

A Springfield Lakes mother caused serious injury to an innocent driver during a three-point turn attempt on a highway, a court has heard.

Lali Nagaraj, 53, pleaded guilty to dangerous operation of a vehicle at Ipswich Magistrates Court on Tuesday, June 25.

The court heard that the then 51-year-old was travelling home from work on September 30, 2021, but her usual route was disrupted because of roadworks.

Ms Nagaraj was driving west on the Centenary Motorway, but was in a potential state of panic or distress, as she passed the usual exit and was heading towards Logan Motorway, the court head.

Centenary Highway has two lanes of travel in each direction with a speed limit of 100km/h, which are divided by a double white centerline.

She stopped her car and tried to execute a u-turn, which was not permitted by law, at around 10.20pm.

She was unable to perform the u-turn in one motion, so she commenced performing a three-point turn, causing her car in a position perpendicular to the flow of oncoming traffic.

The court heard the driver of another car, which was travelling east on the motorway at approximately 90km/h, noticed her car as two floating “box shaped red lights” and tried to break from 30m away.

The two cars crashed with a hit in between the driver and passenger door.

The driver had immediate pain in the centre of their chest and a gash on their leg, which was bleeding heavily.

The driver also suffered nine fractured ribs and sternal fracture and lacerations, causing her to be hospitalised for seven days and to go through physiotherapy.

Magistrate Robert Walker said Ms Nagaraj made a poor decision to manoeuvre through the double white line.

“The consequence of your driving was significant injury to another driver and potentially some injury to yourself, as well as significant property damage involved,” he said.

But he took into consideration that the defendant demonstrated her deep remorse in a letter of apology and her nearly clean traffic history in 29 years, with one only entry of exceeding the speed limit in 2015.

He sentenced Ms Nagaraj to nine months of imprisonment, suspended for two years, and disqualified her driver licence for six months.

Convictions were recorded.

Originally published as Springfield Lakes woman Lali Nagaraj’s attempt at 3-point turn on M5 ends up in terror crash