Man drives 12km against traffic on PIE from Paya Lebar to airport, gets 8 weeks’ jail
He said he was feeling sleepy after drinks and also had an eye condition.Khine Zin Htet |
After drinking multiple glasses of beer with friends, a man in Singapore drove his red Mitsubishi Outlander home while feeling sleepy.
The man, Aswani Daryanani Mohit Riz, 27, then drove against traffic flow along the Pan Island Expressway (PIE) for about 12km.
He entered from Paya Lebar Road and drove all the way to Aiport Boulevard, where he made a U-turn and turned on his navigation to go back to his Marine Crescent home.
A member of the public saw him driving against traffic flow and reported it to the police.
Drove against flow of traffic for 12km
According to a judgment made publicly available on Nov. 18, 2023, Aswani, a Permanent Resident in Singapore, was arrested and pleaded guilty to dangerous driving.
Investigations revealed that Aswani drove his car to Golden Mile Tower in May. 30, 2022, sometime after midnight, to meet with friends to eat and drink.
He then drank multiple glasses of beer and left Golden Mile Tower around 3:45am.
Despite feeling very sleepy, Aswani decided to drive home in his car.
At about 4:03am, he drove his car against traffic flow onto the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) (towards Tuas) via the slip road to Paya Lebar Road.
He continued driving against the flow of traffic for about 12 km along the PIE (Tuas) towards the East Coast Parkway.
Although he was aware that he was driving against the flow of traffic, he did not stop or reduce his driving speed.
Surveillance cameras showed he drove past more than 40 different vehicles, including cars, motorcycles, vans and lorries against the flow of traffic.
The other road users were forced to take evasive action by veering away from Aswani's car, filtering lanes, or braking to avoid a collision with him.
He also veered between lanes, often driving in lane one — the fastest lane.
He finally joined the normal traffic flow when he made a U-turn along Airport Boulevard after entering the East Coast Parkway (ECP).
He then used the navigational application “Waze” to drive back to his house at Marine Crescent and arrived home after 4am.
Breathalyser still show amber 10 hours after incident
A member of the public called the Police to report a car driving against the flow of traffic at about 4:06am on the day of the incident, May. 30, 2022.
The member of the public mistaken Aswani's car to be a "black Mercedes".
Almost 10 hours after the incident, Aswani was arrested at about 2:50pm at his workplace near City Hall.
Two consecutive breathalyser tests were conducted on him using a handheld breathalyser device at about 2:47pm.
The first reading was unsuccessful, while the second reading returned an amber screen, indicating that alcohol was present but under the pre-configured threshold breath alcohol level.
A Breath Analysing Device (BAD) test was conducted on him from 4:46pm to 5pm. The test returned a reading of 1 microgramme of alcohol in 100ml of breath, below the legal limit of 35 microgrammes.
Twenty-eight video clips analysed by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) estimated that Aswani drove between 47km per hour and 91km per hour along PIE.
"Merely fortuitous" no one injured: Prosecution
The prosecution sought a sentence of between four to eight weeks imprisonment and three to four years disqualification from driving for all classes of driving licence.
