A man who was allegedly behind the wheel of a car that crashed killing three passengers has been charged with careless driving with a suspended license.
Twenty-year-old Brooke Sorlie, her boyfriend Aaron French, also twenty, and their friend Charlie Quinn, eighteen, died at the scene of the single-vehicle crash in Tarago, about 40 kilometres south of the New South Wales town of Goulburn, on Sunday.
The car left the road and overturned, finally coming to rest on its roof.
The group were reportedly returning to their hometown of Nowra from Canberra after attending a 21st birthday party when the accident occurred.
Ms Sorlie’s father Svein, who lives abroad, described his daughter as “a light in any room” because of her positive spirit in a Facebook post.
“You meant the world to me,” Sorlie wrote.
‘The pain of missing you has been constant and now it feels even deeper.’
Male driver Lachlan Stuckey, 21, who suffered minor injuries, was arrested and charged Thursday with three counts of careless driving causing death.
He was also charged with driving a motor vehicle with a suspended licence, New South Wales Police said on Friday.
Charlie Quinn and her boyfriend Lachlan Stuckey, who was reportedly driving at the time of the crash.
Lachlan Stuckey (pictured) was the only survivor of the crash. He has been charged with careless driving with a suspended licence.
The man was granted conditional bail and will appear in Goulburn Local Court on October 9.
Meanwhile, another driver was charged on Thursday over another fatal crash on the Barrier Highway outside the inland New South Wales town of Broken Hill on May 28.
The 75-year-old driver of a four-wheel drive Toyota Prado was killed in an accident with an Isuzu D-Max pickup truck.
The driver of the D-Max and two passengers were also taken to hospital with non-serious injuries.
The 61-year-old pickup truck driver has been issued a summons to appear in court for dangerous driving causing death and negligent driving causing death.
He is due to appear in Broken Hill Local Court on September 13.
His girlfriend Charlie Quinn, 18, has been remembered as a “beautiful girl”.
Pictured: Brooke Sorlie, 21, and Aaron French
Daily Mail Australia understands the group were travelling back to their home in the Shoalhaven region at the time of the crash.
A woman who was one of the first to respond to the scene said she and other bystanders worked desperately to save the lives of the other man and woman while they waited for emergency services to arrive.
“They were unconscious. We were doing CPR on them but it wasn’t working. It was horrible,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
One girl was still trapped in the car – the driver’s girlfriend. I can still hear her screams.
‘He was screaming to try to get into the car and get his girlfriend out.’
The tragedy has sparked outrage online as locals criticise the state of the road, which is frequented by freight trucks.
“One of the worst roads I’ve ever driven on. Potholes patched everywhere. It’s been a horror for years,” one person said.
Another added: “The roads are a disgrace. I drive on them a lot and it’s not fair that they are in this condition.”
One woman said there was a concrete slab lying on the road near the accident site, which could pose an obstacle for drivers.
“My family members were the first to arrive at the scene and there was a huge square chunk of concrete on the road that appeared to have caused the accident,” she wrote online.
However, another rescuer told Daily Mail Australia he did not remember seeing the object on the road.
A report will be prepared for the coroner.
