Jail for man who rear-ended police car into shophouse
A man who switched lanes aggressively without looking out for other cars ended up rear-ending a police car, which rammed into a shophouse on impact.
On April 4, Clement Chia Tian Xiang, 44, pleaded guilty to one charge of driving without due care or reasonable consideration, and was sentenced to three weeks’ jail.
He was disqualified from holding all classes of licences for three years, and ordered to pay a compensation of $1,962.40 to the shophouse.
Two other charges, one for failing to drive within the road markers and another for crossing a double white line, were taken into consideration.
The prosecution said that past midnight on Nov 11, 2022, Chia was driving along Jalan Besar Road towards Bencoolen Street.
Footage from Chia’s in-car camera played in court shows his vehicle in the first of the four lanes. He then aggressively drives across two other lanes, failing to notice that a police car had slowed down in front of him.
Chia’s car hit the police car with enough force to dislodge the in-car camera. Photographs of the accident’s aftermath, produced in court, showed the police car being rammed into a shophouse.
It is not known if Chia had sustained any injuries from the impact.
The front and rear bumpers of the police vehicle were dislodged or smashed.
A 25-year-old police officer who was at the wheel was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and diagnosed with a back sprain.
The court heard that Chia had multiple similar charges previously, including for careless driving, failing to stop after an accident, failing to give assistance after an accident and being incapable of controlling his vehicle.
In his mitigation, he apologised and said he will be more careful in future.
Chia, who wanted to seek a deferment for four weeks, was chided by District Judge Salina Ishak for driving to court alone even though he was pleading guilty. Offenders facing imprisonment who plead guilty could be asked to start serving their jail term immediately upon sentencing.
The judge told Chia that he cannot assume the court would grant his deferment application.
He will begin serving his sentence on May 3.
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