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SOURCE: The Straits Times

He had spent 15 hours straight at the Resorts World Sentosa casino.

By the time David Chang, 40, left the casino, it was nearly noon the next day.

He was so tired that he dozed off while he was driving along Telok Blangah Road.

In what seemed like a split second, his Suzuki Swift hit an elderly couple who were about to cross the road.

Mr Yeo Ah Bah, 73, died of severe multiple injuries. His wife, Madam Ler Sock Hua, 70, suffered fractures to her leg and foot.

Yesterday, the driver was fined $11,500 and disqualified from driving for 3 years.

Chang, who works as a credit officer at Phillip Securities, had pleaded guilty in a district court to two counts of driving negligently in the incident.

The court heard that he had gone to the casino on Jan 21. When he left the next day, he had been there for 15 hours.

Assistant Public Prosecutor Jamunah pointed out that he chose to drive himself home even though he had no proper rest.

Investigations indicated that Mr Yeo and his wife were at a bus stop and about to cross the road when they were hit.

The car then mounted the kerb and struck an advertisement board and a tree.

Mr Yeo died in hospital less than two hours later. His wife, who injured her leg and foot, found it very difficult to move for a month and is still 28 per cent incapacitated.

For each offence of driving negligently, Chang could have been jailed for up to two years, fined up to $10,000, or sentenced to both.

But defence counsel S.S. Dhillon pleaded for a fine to be imposed.

He said: “It was an accident due to my client closing his eyes for some three seconds.”

He added that his client, a bachelor, earned $2,200 a month and had been driving his older sister’s Suzuki Swift.

Mr Dhillon also cited an earlier case where the offender was fined for similar offences.

Chang had been “severely traumatised by the incident and still suffers nightmares”, he said.

When passing sentence, District Judge Wong Choon Ning noted that Chang had rendered assistance to the couple.

The judge said “it is always a tragedy when there is an accident where there is a loss of life”, but added that the court would consider if the accident was avoidable.

Chang, who did not display any expression when the sentence was passed, left the Subordinate Courts immediately after paying the fine.

The family of his victims were not present.

When The Straits Times visited Chang’s home last night, no one came to the door. One of his neighbours said that he had not seen Chang in the last couple of days.

This is not the first case where a driver was fined for causing death by driving negligently.

In an earlier widely reported Thomson Road case, the High Court had upheld the $9,500 fine and three-year driving ban handed

down to Ng Jui Chuan, 35, by a district court. Ng had fallen asleep at the wheel when he was driving along Upper Thomson Road on

Nov 8, 2009. His car veered to the side of the road and hit Madam Mok Sow Loon, 76, and her husband Wee Song Mong, 77, who were

heading to a church. Mr Wee suffered minor injuries but Madam Mok died on the spot. Ng, a manager in a milk products company, was

charged with causing Madam Mok’s death by a rash act and endangering Mr Wee’s life by a rash act. In October 2010, after a trial, a

district judge amended both charges to “negligent” instead of “rash” acts. The prosecution appealed against the amendment of the

charges and the sentences imposed, arguing that the act of a driver dozing off at the wheel should be considered “rash”.

In his judgment, Justice Choo Han Teck agreed with the trial judge that Ng’s mental state fell short of rashness.

The judge said that driving when one is tired or sleepy is not an offence, let alone an offence of rashness.

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