Cobram man admits dangerous driving at Garvoc in Warrnambool court

The 23-year-old Cobram man had been drinking alcohol on the night of January 7, 2023 when he got behind the wheel of his employer's ute, which he was not entitled to drive because he only had a learner's permit.

He drove for about five kilometres before reaching a slight bend in the Garvoc-Framlingham Road.

The man was driving too quickly, losing control and then over-correcting.

The ute rolled and came to a rest on its roof.

Police attended but the driver and his passenger had already left the scene.

The man, who The Standard has chosen not to name because a conviction was not recorded, pleaded guilty in Warrnambool Magistrates Court on October 9 to driving offences.

He's among a number of drink-driving men in their 20s to face the city's courts during the past month, but magistrate Gerard Lethbridge said he was one of the lucky ones.

In the Warrnambool County Court a 26-year-old Irish drink-driver who failed to stop at an intersection, killing his 18-year-old passenger and seriously injuring another at Cobden, was jailed for more than eight years on September 28.

Just eight days later a 23-year-old Greenwald man was sentenced to seven years and two months' jail after driving on the wrong side of the Princes Highway, colliding head-on with a Portland man who died at the scene.

Magistrate Lethbridge said on Monday the Cobram man was an inexperienced and unlicensed driver who had been drinking in the lead up to the crash.

"He has a crash where it rolls over and of course if the passenger or anybody was dead, he'd be looking at eight (years' jail) with six (years' non-parole)," he said.

"I hope you have the sense to learn from this... to learn about how drinking can affect your judgement because all you've got to do is go upstairs (to the county court), perhaps not today but last week and the week before that, to see young men in their early 20s being sentenced (to jail).

"Why? For being drunk behind the wheel of a car where there's a collision and someone dies. You came that close."

Mr Lethbridge said he assumed the driver and his passenger were "thankfully" wearing seat belts.

"If somebody was killed or seriously injured, you would go to jail for years and years," he said.

"The tariff is eight years."

Mr Lethbridge said the fact the man was not entitled to drive was a serious matter.

"You've got to lose your license for that, there is no question about it," he said.

The man's licence was disqualified for nine months. He was also placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond with the condition he pay $800 to the court fund.

The County Court judge who sentenced the two men in their 20s to jail this month said general deterrence was an important factor and the message must be "the community will not tolerate innocent people being killed by those who drink and then drive".

"It's imperative that the message of deterrence is set out, particularly to your demographic of young men so often involved in offending of this type," Judge Kevin Doyle said.

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