The Brampton truck driver who caused a colossal crash on Burlington’s Skyway Bridge that caused $1.2 million in damage and injured three motorists has lost an appeal of his conviction and sentence.

Sukhvinder Singh Rai, 38, was convicted of dangerous driving in 2016 in the July 31, 2014 crash. He was sentenced to one year in jail.

Rai was driving a dump truck and had failed to turn off the power that operated the lifting and lowering of the trailer’s box. As he drove on the QEW eastbound approaching the Skyway, the box rose to a position higher than the clearance on the bridge and hit it, damaging it severely.

His appeal was heard July 6 and the written decision was released Monday, July 9.

The Ontario Court of Appeal rejected his argument that a one-year jail sentence was “unfit.” Rai’s lawyer argued he should have been given a conditional sentence, or 90 days in jail.

“The appellant’s dangerous driving caused injuries to three people … and substantial damage to a major bridge and several other vehicles,” the decision concluded. “As well, the appellant had a previous conviction for impaired driving. Taken together, these factors easily support the one-year sentence imposed by the trial judge.”

The defence lawyer made two arguments to show that the evidence of the smell of alcohol on his breath should have been excluded. He argued that keeping Rai in a cruiser for more than three hours was “arbitrary detention” and a violation of his Charter rights. He also said that his client was not informed of his right to a lawyer in a timely manner, another violation.

During the trial, court heard that he was kept in the cruiser for his safety at a scene described by police as “chaos,” “panic,” and “disaster”.

“Unlike other motorists who were confined to their vehicles for up to three hours while police and emergency personnel dealt with the carnage caused by the accident, the appellant could not return to his destroyed truck,” the court concluded. “In these circumstances, it made perfect sense for the police to do what they did — place the appellant in a police cruiser and try to make him comfortable.”

The court concluded Rai’s detention was the “antithesis of arbitrary.”