Fall in illegal vehicle modification offences

Stricter penalties as well as regular enforcement and inspections have brought the number of illegal vehicle modification offences down over the past five years, Senior Minister of State for Transport Amy Khor said yesterday.

In the last two years, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) issued an average of 610 notices of offences per month to owners of illegally modified vehicles. These modifications include non-compliant exhaust and lighting systems as well as tinted windows.

The number of such offences fell from an average of 1,800 per month in 2015 to 550 per month last year, Dr Khor told Parliament.

But taking action against workshops that perform these illegal modifications remains a challenge, she noted, even after the Road Traffic Act was updated in 2017 to give enforcement efforts more teeth.

Mr Lim Biow Chuan (Mountbatten), had asked whether the authorities would step up enforcement and impose higher penalties against such workshops.

Dr Khor said: "We need the vehicle owners to identify the workshops and then for them to agree to be prosecution witnesses. So far, the vehicle owners we have interviewed have not been cooperative."

She added that LTA is looking at other ways to gather evidence.

She also highlighted the importance of stemming the demand for illegal modifications, and said penalties against vehicle owners were stiffened in 2017.

First-time offenders can be fined up to $5,000 and jailed for up to three months.

Repeat offenders face double the maximum penalty and are also subject to mandatory vehicle inspections every three to six months, instead of every one to two years typically.

Vehicles found to have engines that have been tampered with are deregistered and the owners may not get rebates on the residual certificate of entitlement, if any.

Mr Lim said he had received complaints from residents about noisy cars and motorcycles speeding along East Coast Parkway and Mountbatten Road.

He also brought up the car crash in Tanjong Pagar on Feb 13 that killed five men, and allegations that the car involved was possibly modified.

Dr Khor said it was premature to comment on the case, as the police are still investigating.

Separately, Ms Joan Pereira (Tanjong Pagar GRC) asked what the authorities were doing in response to complaints from residents about speeding in the Tanjong Pagar area.

In response, Minister of State for Home Affairs Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim said Tanjong Pagar Road is not known to be a speeding-prone area, but the Traffic Police conduct frequent patrols and put up roadblocks there to deter and detect drink driving and speeding.

Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on March 02, 2021, with the headline Fall in illegal vehicle modification offences. Subscribe