36-year-old Malaysian, Mohd Shahrir Johari, who had cut the queue at Woodlands checkpoint and kept inching his car towards an auxiliary police officer trying to stop him, was jailed 4 weeks on 13 April after pleading guilty to one count of acting rashly to endanger the safety of others, as well as being banned from driving for a year.
Shahrir was a driver working for his wife’s transport business and provides limousine services to drive people between Singapore and Malaysia.
What happened?
On 23 March 2023 at about 7.08am, Shahrir was driving towards the Woodlands Checkpoint and decided to cut the queue of other cars via the bus lane, and he was spotted by auxiliary police officer Muhammad Noralif Amir Hamzah, whose job was to control the traffic.
The officer and his partner then signalled to Shahrir to u-turn but their instructions were ignored by the driver, who continued to try and cut the queue.
Officer Noralif then stood before Shahrir’s car to stop him while his partner directed him to turn, but the driver insisted on cutting the queue because he was late for a passenger pickup in Singapore.
Shahrir then inched his car forward repeatedly towards officer Noralif despite being aware that he was standing in front of his car.
Noralif’s partner then hit the car’s bonnet with his hand and shouted for the driver to stop, but Shahrir refused and continued inching forward until his car came into contact with Noralif’s leg.
The partner then reached into Shahrir’s car through the open window and switched off the engine, with the driver then getting into a dispute with him before turning the engine back on.
He then continued inching his car forward towards officer Noralif, who was still standing in front of the car and had to take a few steps backwards to avoid being hit.
Noralif then relayed that incident to his superiors and allowed Shahrir to drive into Woodlands Checkpoint, where he was detained by ICA officers before being handed over to the police.
Officer Noralife didn’t sustain any injuries.