Man to be charged over 2025 car accident that killed woman at Geylang pasar malam
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A 66-year-old female stall attendant was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.
PHOTO: SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
SINGAPORE – A man will be charged on Sept 2 with driving under the influence of etomidate and dangerous driving causing death, over an accident that happened in 2025.
The accident at a Geylang night market on July 11, 2025, resulted in the death of a woman who was tending the stall at the time.
The police said they were alerted to the accident in Pipit Road near Block 52A Circuit Road at around 11.45pm that day.
Investigations found that the driver had lost control of the car, the police said in a statement on Sept 1, 2026.
The car surged forward and crashed through a carpark barrier before crossing the two-lane Pipit Road.
It then mounted the kerb before crashing into the temporary night market stall on the side of the road, said the police.
The 66-year-old stall attendant was pronounced dead at the scene.
The police said the driver did not render assistance to the stall attendant and abandoned the vehicle before fleeing the scene with a male passenger.
Through ground inquiries and with the aid of police cameras, officers from the Traffic Police established the identity of the car driver and arrested him on July 12, 2025.
Preliminary investigations further revealed that the man did not possess a valid driving licence and had used a vaporiser containing etomidate before driving, the police added.
The vehicle was rented using the account of the male passenger, who possessed a valid driving licence. No further action will be taken against the passenger as he has died from an unrelated road traffic accident, said the police.
If found guilty, the car driver can be jailed for up to eight years, fined up to $20,000, or both.
Photos of the accident were posted on Facebook page SGRV Front Man in July 2025. They show a GetGo rental car rammed into the side of a flight of stairs, after seemingly crashing into a pasar malam, or night market, stall.
GetGo told The Straits Times then that preliminary information showed the car was not driven by an authorised user, which was a “severe breach of our terms of service”.
Between 2023 and 2025, there were 38 traffic accidents linked to drug and etomidate use, of which 19 led to deaths. The police told ST that of the 19, nine involved etomidate while the remaining 10 involved only drugs.
In their mid-year road traffic statistics on Aug 28, the Traffic Police said the number of road traffic accidents and casualties in the first half of 2026 continued to show an upward trend over the past three years, rising from 1,907 in 2024 to 2,096 in 2025 and 2,186 in 2026.
The number of fatalities fell from 79 in the first half of 2025 to 61 in the first half of 2026, and the number of fatal accidents dropped from 78 to 60.
