The mother injured in a horrific car crash is protesting the one-year prison sentence the driver received this week.

And Vivian Smatt is particularly incensed that Selwyn Berkeley neglected to apologise to her and her family in Tuesday's sentencing in the Supreme Court.

"My heart goes out to the Ashanti Smith family, but Selwyn Berkeley has been portrayed as the victim,'' Mrs. Smatt said from her bed last night.

"But he chose to drive at 95 kph. He chose to drive that quickly,'' she added. "And the media didn't help in sensitising people to that.'' Mrs. Smatt, 44, was returning from an afternoon shopping trip on Saturday, May 2, last year when Berkeley's Subaru car collided with her light van on North Shore Road, Devonshire, killing Mr. Smith and injuring her and her two youngest children.

She has undergone numerous surgeries and countless hours of therapy and cannot walk without crutches or a walker.

Among the injuries she suffered in the crash were more than a dozen broken bones, a steel rod in her thigh, and nerve damage. Her son had broken bones in his face, damaged legs, and portions of his scalp sheared off.

While she expects to walk on her own within a year, Mrs. Smatt faces many more months of surgery and therapy while trying to raise her family.

Her eldest daughter, Julia, 18, has stepped in to help care for her siblings and her mother, while continuing her studies in school.

Crash victim slams the jail sentence of driver "I do not understand what the court was thinking,'' Mrs. Smatt said. "He's gotten a slap on the wrist. With half time in prison, he could be out in six months.'' She added: "Dangerous driving is just not taken seriously enough. But it is quite obvious that unless you increase the penalty, there is the perception that nothing is being done.'' Mrs. Smatt said the seriousness of the offence warranted a longer sentence especially since the maximum penalty is five years.

"It's giving a message to all of the poor drivers that it is not a serious offence,'' she said. "The legislature and the judiciary have put forth the message that if you sell drugs, you could go to jail for five, ten, or 20 years.

"Yet they're saying this (dangerous driving) is not that bad and we're going to give you just 20 percent of the possible sentence!'' Berkeley was sentenced to one year in prison for causing death by dangerous driving and banned from driving for two-and-a-half years.

For causing grievous bodily harm to Mrs. Smatt and her son, Berkeley was imprisoned for six months on each count and given an 18-month driving suspension. All sentences are to run concurrently.

Mrs. Smatt also took aim at the media for not focussing on Berkeley's victims.

In the year since the crash, nothing had been said about the speed at which Berkeley had been travelling or that he was driving dangerously, she said.

"Selwyn Berkeley's car was flying through the air when it hit my car,'' Mrs.

Smatt recalled "The media has also said he was overtaking, which implies it was just another manoeuvre on our roads and done in a reasonable manner.

"That is far from the truth. He was driving as unsafely as anybody possibly can.'' And she criticised the prosecution's account of what took place.

"She (Crown counsel Charlene Scott) didn't even elaborate on our injuries, only that two people were injured,'' Mrs. Smatt said. "My son and daughter will not even get in the front seat of a car! There was nothing about our extensive injuries.'' She also questioned why Berkeley was never tested for alcohol or drug impairment, adding: "To this day they are not certain that he was drunk or not. That's intriguing.'' Mrs. Smatt has offered herself as a campaigner for road safety, saying she is willing to go into schools to teach young people about the consequences of reckless driving.

"Let them see the outcome of one person's foolhardy actions,'' she said.

"But mainly the courts are certainly not backing the Road Safety Council. If the courts were truly making an effort to stop this kind of driving, Selwyn Berkeley would have received a five-year sentence.''