Traffic rules are in place for everyone’s safety and breaking them often constitutes fines or punishments which offenders must fulfil.
A 51-year-old woman, however, tried to evade such responsibility by paying her friend S$10,000 to take the blame for her traffic offence.
On Tuesday (1 Nov), she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four days’ jail, S$2,500 fine and a 15-month driving ban.
The woman, Candy McDonald, also known as Lim Siew Peng, was friends with her co-accused, 46-year-old Koh Chew Seng, and his wife.
Koh worked as a Grab driver, managing a car rental company under the name Koheng Auto.
In December 2019, he told McDonald to rent a car from his company for her work as a Grab driver as well, reports Channel News Asia (CNA).
In May 2020, she was transporting passengers in the rented vehicle when she committed the offence.
She allegedly drove against the flow of traffic to overtake another car, barely avoiding a collision and forcing the other driver to slam on the brakes.
In June 2020, Koh received a summons from the traffic police, stating that the rented car was used to commit a reckless driving offence.
As a result, the driver would get six demerit points and an out-of-court fine of S$200.
After he told McDonald about the summons, she reportedly called him and admitted to committing the offence. However, she was reluctant to face the consequences as she did not want her licence to be revoked, which would affect her work as a Grab driver.
The pair reached an agreement after a discussion, where Koh offered to find another driver to take the blame. In exchange, McDonald had to pay Koh S$10,000 in weekly instalments of S$200.
He started looking for drivers who would accept the responsibility but was unable to do so. Then, he considered pinning the blame on his wife instead as they were both female drivers.
Using a corporate account under his company, he submitted his wife’s particulars to the traffic police and later received a summon letter addressed to her.
According to The Straits Times (ST), Koh made the payment of S$200 and his wife received the six demerit points. This was done without the knowledge of both McDonald and his wife.
The next month, McDonald began to make her monthly payments to him, which his wife noticed. However, Koh dismissed her questions and told her not to “ask so much”.
In January 2021, McDonald filed a police report admitting to the whole scheme, though it’s unclear why she did so.
For his role in the crime, the court first sentenced Koh to one week’s jail.
As for McDonald, the prosecutor sought at least four days’ jail, S$3,000 fine and an 18-month driving ban, pointing to the risk of a major accident due to her actions.
However, her defence lawyer asked for one day’s jail, S$2,000 fine and a 14-month driving ban. He said that she was a single mother and the sole breadwinner of her family.
At the time of the offence, she was delivering food and would be late due to traffic conditions, causing her to flout the rules, he added.
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Featured image adapted from Ali Farhat on Unsplash.
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