A Hastings woman whose son was killed when she checked Google Maps and crashed her car, has been spared jail.

Kim Crous has been sentenced in the Napier District Court, after pleading guilty to careless driving causing death, and two charges of careless driving causing injury.

She's received six months supervision, and been disqualified from driving for a year.

Ms Crous was checking Google Maps on her smart phone while driving along the Hawke's Bay Expressway, when she ploughed into a vehicle which had stopped for road-works at the Pandora Bridge, on April 21 last year.

She was on her way to a play date for her two children to a property in Bayview where she’d never been before.

Judge Geoff Rea told the court Ms Crous had lifted her cellphone up to see how far away she was from her destination.  She took her eyes off the road for a couple of seconds, and when she looked up it was too late.  She collided at full speed into the rear of a stationary vehicle. 

Eight-year-old James Crous was wearing a seatbelt, but broke his neck and died at the scene.

Her 5-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old girl in the other car suffered cuts and bruises.

Her lawyer Scott Jefferson said the Crous family had relocated to New Zealand from South Africa for a better life. He described Ms Crous has a “doting parent” who home-schooled James.

Mr Jefferson said the Serious Crash Investigation report highlighted that the signage around the work site, which reduced traffic to one-lane over the bridge, was a “little inadequate” given the 375 metre line of traffic on the northbound lane.  

However “she ought to have seen it” he said.

Mr Jefferson told Judge Rea that the crash has been devastating for the family and Ms Crous is shattered by her own actions. 

“The fact she has to live with her own actions is the ultimate penalty,” he said.

Judge Rea told Ms Crous that her sentencing was among the most severe and difficult. 

“The result of your actions has been horrendous for you and your family”.

He said the very reason it is illegal to use a cellphone whilst driving is because of exactly what has happened here. 

“Paying attention to technology has led to a catastrophic result.”

In handing down a sentence of six months supervision, Judge Rea told the emotional mother that “any penalty is insufficient compared to the life-long penalty of the loss of your son”.