LYNWOOD CRASH | Indian national worked 22-hour rideshare shift before horror crash killed baby, court told
A Perth rideshare driver was allegedly behind the wheel for a staggering 22 hours straight before he fell asleep and slammed his car into a tree — killing a seven-month-old baby girl upon impact.
Rajwinder Singh Grewal, 35, appeared in Armadale Magistrates Court this week, where the chilling details of his alleged marathon shift were laid bare before the court.
The court heard that Grewal had allegedly been working for 22 hours leading up to the catastrophic early-morning crash.
His in-car camera had captured him drifting off to sleep on multiple occasions during that period.
Despite those alleged moments of microsleep, Grewal is accused of continuing to accept jobs, picking up further passengers even as exhaustion overtook him.
The tragedy unfolded in the early hours of March 28 on Nicholson Road in Lynwood, in Perth's south-east, at approximately 3.40am.
The single-vehicle crash left the infant girl dead and two others, including the baby's mother seriously injured.
Grewal has since been charged with three counts of dangerous driving over the horror incident, which has shocked Perth's rideshare community.
The tragedy has also reignited concerns about driver fatigue, platform oversight and the lack of hard caps on how many hours rideshare drivers can legally work in a single stretch.
In court this week, Grewal's bail conditions were amended to allow him to continue working — but not in rideshare.
He has instead been granted permission to work as a freight driver, provided he is at home between 9pm and 4am every night.
The fresh conditions are designed to keep him off the roads during the overnight hours when the fatal crash occurred.
Grewal is yet to enter a plea to any of the charges and is scheduled to return to court in August.
Unlike truck drivers, who operate under strict heavy-vehicle fatigue laws regulating maximum driving hours and mandatory rest breaks, rideshare drivers in Western Australia operate under far looser oversight.
The responsibility for managing fatigue falling largely on the individual driver and the platform they work for.
The fatal Lynwood crash is now widely expected to reopen debate about whether those rules are fit for purpose in an industry that continues to grow rapidly across Perth and wider WA.
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