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Pub owner Charles Lee Cheow Loong, 30, also killed someone. His punishment: a year's jail and a 10-year driving ban.
He was driving even though he had been banned from doing so - he had been caught for drink driving before and had had his licence revoked for 18 months.
Drunk drivers had the spotlight shone on them last year, with familiar faces - TV actor Christopher Lee and former TV host Benedict Goh - hauled off to jail.
Penalties for driving while under the influence of alcohol are causing some confusion and concern.
How heavily should a driver be punished if he killed someone while in an alcoholic daze?
Some people feel that Su Hong and Charles Lee got off too lightly. The prosecution in Lee's case thinks so too, and is appealing to the higher courts.
Drunk drivers might not have set out to mow anyone down, but if they took a life or mangled limbs or damaged property, then the punishment must fit the consequences of their acts. Or so the argument goes.
The facts after a night out on the town are not pretty: Half of all drunk drivers caught in 2006 were in the 20- to 34-year-old age group.
Drunk drivers are also creating more havoc on the roads, hurting or killing 361 people in 2006 compared to 242 in 2005 and 277 in 2004. Figures for last year are not yet available.
Depending on the kind of ha-
voc wreaked, two sets of laws govern drink driving cases: the Road Traffic Act and the Penal Code.
Fail a breathalyser test at a police roadblock and it's a maximum $5,000 fine or a six-month jail term for the drunk reveller.
Second-time and subsequent offenders can be fined up to $10,000, and be imprisoned for up to 12 months. All offenders will also be disqualified from driving for at least a year, or longer if the court deems fit.
Drive drunk and kill someone and the Penal Code, which governs crime and punishment, could be thrown at you.
For causing death by rash or negligent acts not amounting to culpable homicide, you could be locked away for two years and fined.
In Su Hong's case, he pleaded guilty to three charges. He was sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment and disqualified from driving for five years for causing death, two weeks' imprisonment and a driving ban of three years for drink driving, and eight weeks' imprisonment and a driving ban of three years for fleeing the scene.
The judge ordered the sentences for the first and third charges to run consecutively.
Professor Chan Wing Cheong of the National University of Singapore's law faculty thinks that the sentences were reasonable.
'The maximum sentences are reserved for the worst or most egregious cases,' he said, adding that an egregious case could be when a person's conduct is 'particularly callous'.
When assigning blame, the issue of culpability is crucial, he noted.
A drunk driver who hits and kills someone is not the same as a murderer who has an intention to kill, in which case he faces the mandatory death penalty.
'In all of these cases, a life has been lost, but the law tries to distinguish the cases which are more serious and deserving of greater punishment,' said Prof Chan.
'At one extreme is murder and at the other extreme is causing death by a negligent act.'
A rash act, he explained, means that 'the person can foresee that there is a chance that the prohibited result, for example death, will occur, but thinks that it won't because the risk is too small or that sufficient precautions have been taken, and therefore carries on regardless'.
A negligent act is when the person did not foresee the consequence, but a reasonable person in his shoes would have.
The perceived severity of a sentence also hinges on whether the judge orders sentences to be served concurrently or consecutively, and whether a person pleads guilty.
Noted NUS law Professor Michael Hor: 'The traditional way of deciding on a sentence is for the law to provide a maximum penalty and for the courts to exercise a discretion to tailor a punishment suitable for the offence and offender.
'We have no reason to believe that that is not working satisfactorily for drink driving.'
Besides, recent revisions to the Penal Code also included upping the jail term for causing death by a rash act from two to five years.
Legal experts are not in favour of introducing stiffer punishments for drink driving.
Said Prof Hor: 'It must be remembered that once penalties are raised, they almost never come down, for then it is feared that it might 'send the wrong signal'.
'Raising punishments or making certain punishments mandatory should be a very last resort, for the risk is great that doing so will send people to or keep people in jail needlessly.'
Singapore's traffic laws are on a par with most developed countries, which also slap mandatory jail sentences on recalcitrant offenders.
Drinking and driving on Singapore roads is limited to about 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.
That works out to no more than two glasses of alcoholic drinks and is the same as official standards in the United States and Malaysia, but more tolerant than many other countries, including Japan and India (both 30mg), Australia, France and Hong Kong (all 50mg).
In the United States - which has one of the worst drink driving accident rates in the developed world, accounting for 40 per cent of total traffic deaths - penalties have been revised upwards.
Since last year, any drunk person in Florida involved in a hit-and-run resulting in death faces mandatory imprisonment of two years.
The country also has a zero tolerance law for those under the age of 21. Youngsters caught tanked up could face a driving ban of two years in some states, and even possible imprisonment of up to one year.
The younger set in Singapore can still imbibe and drive. But the courts have signalled that youthful abandon is no excuse.
Last November, an appeals judge set aside a probation order given by a district judge for a 21-year-old motorcyclist who killed his pillion-riding friend. Justice V.K. Rajah packed him off to jail for five months instead.
The issue of whether the laws or punishments meted out are too hard-nosed or too forgiving will always be contentious.
Ms Manbir Lalwani, who launched advocacy group Students Against Drink Driving in 2006, thinks that drunk drivers are punished enough.
Said the creative director of an ad agency: 'What the offenders have to go through, the memory they have to live with, that itself is already a big punishment.'
But emergency physician Zulkarnain Ab Hamid wants mandatory jail sentences for those arrested for drink driving.
'In Singapore, we're only deterred by stiff penalties. The only way is for you to up the ante. Make it harsh for drink drivers and send a strong message that we don't condone this,' he said.
As a doctor at an accident and emergency hospital unit, he has seen his fair share of mangled limbs from traffic accidents.
'The regrettable thing is, such tragic situations are avoidable. The moment you step into a car, you are perfectly aware of the consequences of your actions, so there is no excuse,' he said.
