SBS bus driver arrested for drink-driving
Leong Wee Keat
[email protected]
An SBS Transit bus captain was arrested - and subsequently sacked -
for drink driving, after the bus he was driving crashed into a
lamp-post yesterday morning.
This is the first drink-driving incident involving one of its bus
captains, said SBS Transit, which has since terminated the services
of the driver.
The Service 145 bus was travelling along Victoria Street, towards
Kallang, when the accident happened at 9.30am.
Witnesses told Today that the bus was travelling in the bus lane
opposite Raffles Hospital when it mounted a kerb and crashed into
the lamp-post.
Four passengers were believed to be onboard, but no one was
injured.
The driver, a man in his mid-30s, is out on bail. If charged and
convicted of drink driving, he could be fined between $1,000 and
$5,000, or jailed six months and banned from driving for at least a
year.
SBS Transit spokesperson Tammy Tan said the company is "appalled"
by the incident and added: "We take a very serious view of this and
have decided to sack the bus captain as a warning to other bus
captains."
SBS Transit currently operates 2,800 of the 3,500 public buses
here.
The damaged lamp-post was later replaced.
In the first quarter of this year, 920 people were arrested for
drink-driving, 22 per cent more than the same period last
year.
In the high profile drink-driving case involving actor Christopher
Lee, who was released from jail recently, High Court Judge Lee Seiu
Kin called drink driving a "social menace".
Justice Lee said he wanted to send a "sobering chill down the
spines" of potential drink drivers last month when he extended
Lee's original jail term of a month by another two weeks. He also
said the tendency of the courts to merely impose fines for
first-time offenders ought to stop. - TODAY
