He packed the night before he left and got up early so he could drive when there were fewer vehicles on the road. His cell phone was charged. He carried a card for roadside assistance and an emergency kit in his trunk. He was covered by a AAA plan purchased by his grandparents.

But all his caution couldn't stop another driver from falling asleep at the wheel and crashing head-on into Smith's 1966 Mustang outside Monticello on June 16, 2002. The 19-year-old college student, as well as a woman in the other motorist's vehicle, were killed in the collision.

On Wednesday, the other driver, Isidro Aranda-Flores, was sentenced to about 6 1/2 years in prison, but not for the deaths. U.S. District Judge David Sam in Salt Lake City imposed the term on the 24-year-old Mexican national for transporting relatives who were undocumented immigrants. Aranda-Flores, who also is an undocumented immigrant, will be deported after he serves his sentence.

The crash was considered an accident because Aranda-Flores, who had been driving about 8 1/2 hours, had not been drinking or speeding. He had four passengers in his van, all of them his in-laws whom he was driving from Arizona back to their home in Ohio, after they had attended a family funeral in Mexico. The other victim was 62-year-old Bernarda Gordilla.

However, the two deaths did bump up the sentence from the maximum of 2 1/2 years that would have been imposed had there been no fatalities.

Authorities probably would not have filed criminal charges if all the van's occupants had been U.S. citizens. The U.S. Attorney's Office, however, prosecuted Aranda-Flores for violating immigration law and pushed for a tougher sentence based on the fatalities.

Sam, who described the case as heart-wrenching, said, "There's no sentence that I can impose that would be adequate to compensate for the loss of lives."

Smith's mother said her son's death has been devastating.

"He did everything right," a sobbing Tanya Lowe told Sam as she described Travis' preparations for his drive from Montrose to the Phoenix area, where he attended Mesa Community College. "My son was not in the wrong place at the wrong time. [Aranda-Flores] was."

Lowe said her son was an honor student who played high-school football and stayed sober at parties to ensure his friends never drove after drinking. Her youngest son, Travis' brother, broke the news of the crash to her.

"Every day is as hard as the first day," Lowe said.

Stepmother Elaine Smith said Travis was "a young man taking his first step."

"There are no words to describe the emptiness that never goes away," she said. "Travis deserved better. Travis was headed for something better."

Her husband, Wayne Smith, was too upset to speak at the sentencing hearing. But outside court, he said that the law should be altered so that being in the United States illegally would warrant harsher sentencing, just as recklessness and intoxication do, in traffic-accident cases.

pmanson@sltrib.com