Public Prosecutor v Koh Yew Choo [2026] SGDC 282

Introduction

The accused, a 59-year-old Singaporean, pleaded guilty to one charge of driving without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road, under section 65(1)(b) of the Road Traffic Act 1961 ("RTA"), which is punishable under section 65(3)(a) read with section 65(6)(d) of the RTA. I sentenced her to a fine of $4,000 (in default, two weeks’ imprisonment) and disqualified her from holding or obtaining any class of driving licence for five years ("the DQ Order").

The accused has appealed only the DQ Order and has paid the fine in full.

I now set out the reasons for my decision.

Facts

The Statement of Facts sets out the full facts, which the accused admitted without qualification. I set out a summary of the salient facts below.

The accident occurred on 12 May 2022 at around 3.41 pm. Sometime before 3.41 pm, the accused was on Senoko Road, driving her motorcar back to her office in Sungei Kadut. She was alone in the car.

At about 3.41 pm, the accused was driving along Gambas Avenue in lane 3 of three lanes, approaching a junction. The victim, Haikal Bin Yahya, was riding his motorcycle straight on the opposite side of the junction in lane 2 of three lanes. The traffic light was green for both parties. At the junction, the accused executed a discretionary right turn into Woodlands Avenue 9. At the same time, the victim was riding straight and had the right of way over the accused. As the accused turned, she failed to keep a proper lookout for the victim and therefore failed to exercise reasonable consideration for other persons using the road. The victim's motorcycle collided with the front of the accused’s car, throwing the victim off the motorcycle, onto the car's bumper, before he landed on the road. The victim was conveyed to the Accident and Emergency Department of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital by ambulance.

At the time of the accident, the weather was clear, the road surface was dry, and visibility was good. Traffic flow was moderate.

A medical report dated 20 September 2023, prepared by Dr Janice Hui, states that the Victim sustained a right subtrochanteric fracture and multiple abrasions as a result of the accident. He was warded for 9 days, from 12 to 20 May 2022. On 14 May 2022, he underwent surgical fixation of the right subtrochanteric fracture. He was granted hospitalisation leave for 221 days, from 12 May 2022 to 18 December 2022. By 20 September 2023, his fracture had healed, and he had returned to work.

Prescribed penalties

The prescribed penalty for an offence under s.65(3)(a) of the RTA is a fine not exceeding $5,000, imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years, or both.

Under s.65(6)(d) of the RTA, unless the court, for special reasons, thinks fit not to order or to order otherwise, the court must order that the person be disqualified from holding or obtaining a driving licence for at least five years.

Antecedents

The accused has unrelated antecedents.

Her history of compounded traffic offences is as follows:

Issues to be determined

The fine

Both parties agree that the applicable sentencing framework is set out in Chen Song v Public Prosecutor [2025] 3 SLR 509 ("Chen Song") and that a fine is the appropriate sentence in this case.

I agree a fine is the appropriate sentence in this case. Neither party has appealed against the fine of $4,000 (in default, two weeks’ imprisonment) imposed, and I say no more about it.

The DQ order

I now turn to the DQ Order, which is the subject of this appeal. Unless there are special reasons, the mandatory minimum disqualification period for an offence under s 65(3)(a) read with s 65(6)(d) of the RTA is five years’ disqualification. The mandatory nature of the DQ Order and the narrow scope of the "special reasons" exception are well established.

The legal framework for “special reasons”

The applicable legal framework for "special reasons" was recently considered in PP v Tan Kai Yuan [2026] SGDC 36, and the decision was upheld on appeal in Tan Kai Yuan [2026] SGHC 152. The framework operates in two stages.

(a) In the first stage, the court considers whether special reasons exist. Special reasons must relate to the facts or circumstances of the offence itself, not to the offender's personal circumstances. As stated in PP v Ng Jiah Hui [2026] SGDC 245 at [118], a special reason is "a mitigating or extenuating circumstance, not amounting in law to a defence to the charge, yet directly connected with the commission of the offence, and one which the court ought properly to take into consideration when imposing punishment", citing Whittall v Kirby [1947] 1 KB 194 at 201.

(b) At the second stage, even if special reasons are established, the court retains discretion as to whether the DQ Order should be imposed, and very exceptional circumstances are required before that discretion is exercised in the offender's favour.

The High Court in Lee Shin Nan v Public Prosecutor [2023] SGHC 354 ("Lee Shin Nan") at [79], also cited in Chen Song at [138], further clarified that special reasons will generally be found only if the court is satisfied that the offender drove in circumstances that reasonably suggest:

(a) it was necessary to do so to avoid other likely and serious harm or danger; and

(b) there was no reasonable alternative way to achieve this end.

This is a high threshold. The burden lies with the Defence to establish the existence of special reasons.

Importantly, offender-specific factors cannot constitute special reasons. Offender-specific factors, such as the defendant being of good character or having a good driving record, cannot be accepted as special reasons. Circumstances peculiar to the offender are essentially extrinsic facts about the offender that are unrelated to the offence but are presented to elicit sympathy from the court. Even if an offender requires their driving licence for their livelihood, this would not constitute a special reason.

Both the prosecution and the defence acknowledged before me that the threshold for establishing special reasons is high and narrow. The defence nonetheless submitted that the combination of offence-specific factors in the present case was sufficient to engage the "special reasons" exception.

Parties’ submissions

Prosecution’s submission on disqualification

The Prosecution submitted that there are no applicable special reasons in the present case and that this court should therefore impose a 5-year disqualification as required under s 65(6)(d) of the RTA.

Defence’s submission on disqualification

The defence submitted that the following combination of circumstances constituted special reasons:

(a) the significant bend in Gambas Avenue affecting visibility;

(b) the two lorries in lane 1 obstructing the accused’s view of lane 2;

(c) the motorcycle's high speed, likely in excess of the 70 km/h speed limit; and

(d) The motorcycle's improper rightward steering just before the collision. The defence argued that, taken together, these factors made avoiding the collision extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, and that this was therefore not a case where the accused failed to look.

The defence relied on expert evidence from two reports. The defence expert report by Dr George Yu of Universal Technology Centre ("UTC Report") estimated that the car was travelling at approximately 17 km/h during the right turn, that the motorcycle was travelling at approximately 86 km/h, and that the time from the car driver's earliest possible view of the motorcycle to the collision was only about 1.5 seconds — significantly shorter than the commonly accepted brake response time of 2.5 seconds under the AASHTO standard. The prosecution's expert report by Ms Leong Wai Ying of the Health Sciences Authority ("HSA Report") estimated the motorcycle's average speed along Gambas Avenue to be between 69 and 75 km/h, and the car's average speed during the right turn to be between 8 and 30 km/h across two continuous segments, with the car decelerating during the turn. Critically, however, the HSA Report could not determine the precise moment when the motorcycle first became visible to the accused, nor whether she had sufficient time to initiate a response.

Decision on disqualification

After considering the parties' submissions, I was not satisfied that the circumstances relied on by the defence, whether considered individually or in combination, constituted special reasons within the meaning of section 65(6)(d) of the RTA. I explain.

The offence-specific factors do not constitute special reasons

First, the starting point is that the accused executed a discretionary right turn at a junction where the victim had the right of way. She was obliged to ensure it was safe to proceed before turning. The fact that her visibility was limited by the lorries and the bend in the road did not relieve her of this obligation. If anything, it heightened the duty of care she owed to oncoming road users. If her view was obstructed, the appropriate response was to inch forward cautiously until her line of sight was clear, and only then to proceed. She did not do so. The circumstances relied upon by the defence, namely the road geometry, the presence of large vehicles in lane 1, and the motorcycle's speed, are, in my view, features of the ordinary hazards and complexities of urban driving. Drivers executing discretionary right turns at busy junctions routinely encounter obstructed sightlines and oncoming traffic travelling at varying speeds. These are precisely the conditions that the duty to keep a proper lookout is designed to address. The fact that the conditions made it more difficult to spot the motorcycle does not turn those conditions into special reasons to depart from the mandatory disqualification.

Second, the defence's reliance on the motorcycle's excessive speed and contributory conduct is misplaced in this context. While the victim's speed and the motorcycle's rightward steering are relevant to assessing culpability and the appropriate quantum of the fine, which I took into account, they do not constitute special reasons for the DQ Order. The "special reasons" exception concerns the offending driver's conduct, not the victim’s. The victim's speed did not compel the accused to execute the right turn without an adequate lookout; that was a choice she made, even if the victim’s speed exacerbated the consequences. In other words, the accused was not compelled to execute the right turn at that moment; she chose to do so in circumstances where her visibility was limited. The appropriate course was to wait until she could see clearly before proceeding. The fact that, once she had committed to the turn, she may not have had sufficient time to brake does not constitute a special reason. It is a consequence of her decision to proceed without an adequate lookout, not a circumstance that made that decision necessary.

Third, and critically, the present case does not come close to satisfying the Lee Shin Nan formulation. There is no suggestion that the accused drove as she did to avoid other likely and serious harm or danger, or that no reasonable alternative was available to her. She was returning to her office and chose to exercise a discretionary right turn in circumstances where her visibility was limited. The appropriate course was to wait until she could see clearly. The "special reasons" exception was not designed for cases like this. Even if the Lee Shin Nan factors are not exhaustive, the circumstances here do not approach the kind of extraordinary situation that could justify departing from the mandatory disqualification. In my view, the mandatory disqualification in s 65(6)(d) of the RTA is rightly construed strictly to preserve its policy of protecting road users, and a less restrictive approach would negate the legislative stipulation of mandatory disqualification and defeat its underlying objectives. Unduly widening the special reasons exception would also encourage frivolous defences.

I also considered the defence's submission that the amendment to the RTA, passed in Parliament on 7 January 2025, which grants the prosecution flexibility to proceed on a "hurt" charge even where "grievous hurt" has been caused, reflects a legislative recognition of the relevance of mitigating circumstances. I accept that this amendment is not retrospective and does not apply to the present case. However, more fundamentally, prosecutorial discretion to prefer a lesser charge does not, in itself, constitute a special reason for the court to depart from the mandatory disqualification that Parliament has prescribed for the charge that was in fact proceeded with.

PP v Lau Shiao-Li Alexis (Liu Xiaoli) [2025] SGDC 25 ("Alexis Lau") is instructive. In that case, no culpability factors were engaged. There was no evidence contradicting the defence's assertion that the offender had stopped her car before the right turn and was not travelling at a high speed. The green barriers along the road could have partially obstructed the offender's line of sight to the victim. Despite those circumstances, the court in Alexis Lau did not find special reasons to depart from the mandatory disqualification. The present case is no more exceptional. While the accused similarly stopped before executing the right turn and faced obstructed visibility, the circumstances here do not go beyond those in Alexis Lau and certainly do not satisfy the stringent Lee Shin Nan formulation.

Offender-specific factors cannot constitute special reasons

The defence also placed before me the hardship the DQ Order would impose on the accused. Specifically, it was submitted that her occupation as a company director and business owner requires her to drive significant distances daily, and that she frequently ferries her elderly parents and family members to medical appointments. However, as the law makes clear, even if an offender requires her driving licence for her livelihood, this would not constitute a special reason. The hardship described, while admittedly inconvenient, is neither insurmountable nor exceptional. The accused is at liberty to make alternative transport arrangements, whether by engaging a driver, using taxis, or other means. This is not a case of exceptional hardship that would warrant departure from the mandatory disqualification. A fortiori, personal inconvenience arising from the DQ Order cannot constitute a special reason in the present case.

Conclusion

The defence's argument ultimately asks the court to treat the ordinary difficulties of a discretionary right turn as extraordinary. For the foregoing reasons, I was not satisfied that there were special reasons in this case to justify departing from the mandatory five-year disqualification under section 65(6)(d) of the RTA. The scope for finding special reasons is narrow, the threshold is high, and the circumstances of this case do not meet that threshold. I accordingly imposed the DQ Order of five years, with effect from the date of conviction.

The DQ Order has been stayed pending appeal.

Kenneth ChinDistrict Judge