SINGAPORE — While driving one night, Tan Joo Sing failed to keep a lookout for a pedestrian using a traffic crossing even though it was green light for vehicles, and ended up hitting a 15-year-old boy who died later in hospital.

On Thursday (May 30), Tan, 57, pleaded guilty to driving a motor vehicle on a road without reasonable consideration for others.

The sentencing will be heard on June 27.

On Oct 27 in 2020, Tan was driving towards the direction of Jalan Bukit Merah at night to fetch his daughter from work.

At around 10.30pm, he was travelling on the second of a three-lane road along Queensway.

At that time, the weather was clear and the traffic volume was light, court documents stated.

However, Tan failed to notice a teenager stepping onto the first lane of the road at a traffic-light crossing. Even though it was green light for vehicles to go and red for pedestrians to stop, the boy started crossing the road and he did not notice Tan's vehicle.

The teenager had reached the second lane of the road when the car hit him.

He was flung on the road and lay unconscious.

A member of the public called the police to get to the scene near a petrol station along Queensway close to Stirling Road.

Tan then alighted from his car to check on the victim, who was later taken to National University Hospital.

The boy died of head injuries a few hours later at 3.13am.

A medical report showed that he had sustained multiple skull fractures due to the impact.

Court documents showed that Tan had started to apply his brakes about 0.5 to 0.6 seconds before he hit the pedestrian and the car was estimated to be travelling at a speed of between 64km/h and 79km/h.

The speed limit on the road there was 60km/h.

On Thursday, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Yeow Xuan sought a jail term of two to four months, along with eight years of disqualification from driving all class of vehicles. She pointed out that Tan had past convictions for traffic-related offences, including speeding.

She also flagged that Tan had exceeded the speed limit and had not kept a lookout for pedestrians, although she acknowledged that the victim’s act of jaywalking, seemingly without checking for oncoming traffic, could lower Tan's culpability to some extent. 

Defence lawyer Thangavelu of Trident Law Corporation asked the court to consider a non-custodial sentence of a fine not exceeding S$10,000.

Referring to a recorded footage of the accident played in court, Mr Thangavelu said that it happened shortly after Tan had turned away to look out for oncoming vehicles, which was merging towards the road on which he was driving.

He argued that Tan was not speeding excessively and that he had tried to immediately swerve away to avoid hitting the boy.

Tan was “extremely traumatised” by the accident, having to live with the feelings of guilt, fear and trauma, the lawyer added.

For careless driving, Tan could be jailed up to three years or be fined up to S$10,000, or both. The mandatory minimum for the offence is a driving ban of eight years.