SINGAPORE - A delivery driver who caused the death of a motorcyclist while overtaking the rider along an expressway was jailed for three weeks and banned from driving for five years on Thursday (Oct 27).
Sun Jinlong, 36, a Chinese national, was driving a lorry when he caused the death of Mr Tan Kheng Hiok along Central Expressway (CTE) by doing a negligent act at about 11pm on March 20, 2015. He failed to keep a safe distance from the motorcycle when overtaking on the right, resulting in the lorry side-swiping the motorcycle and caused it to lose control and resulting in the 61-year-old's death.
The court heard that Sun was driving his vehicle on the second lane from the left of the CTE when he caught up with Mr Tan's motorcycle and was about two car lengths behind the machine.
Sun subsequently decided to overtake the motorcycle. He signalled to the right, stepped on the accelerator and increased his speed to about 65 to 70kmh. He started switching from the second lane of the four-lane expressway to the third lane.
At that point, he saw that there was another vehicle behind him at the third lane approaching his vehicle.
Instead of moving fully into the third lane while overtaking the motorcycle, he continued to travel in between the second and third lane and started to overtake the motorcycle.
He negligently failed to keep a safe distance away from Mr Tan's motorcycle. The left side of his lorry came into contact with the motorcycle. Mr Tan lost control and fell onto the road.
Mr Tan was taken unconscious to hospital where he died from head injury the following day.
Sun could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined for causing death by doing a negligent act.