Jail for ERP cheat who modified motorcycle licence plate

A file photo of an Electronic Road Pricing gantry in Singapore. (Photo: iStock)

SINGAPORE: To evade Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges, a woman modified one of her motorcycle's licence plates.

With the positions of two numbers on the motorcycle's rear licence plate switched, she committed 68 ERP-related offences and five illegal parking offences between October 2019 and February 2020, based on Land Transport Authority (LTA) records.

The woman, 28-year-old Malaysian Deivanai Karunanithi, was sentenced to three weeks in jail on May 10, according to a court document obtained by CNA on Thursday (May 23).

This is the first case in which LTA has charged an individual for using a foreign-registered vehicle with a false licence plate to prevent unlawful activities from being detected.

Deivanai's offences came to light on Feb 21, 2020, when an LTA officer spotted different numbers on the front and rear licence plates of her motorcycle while it was parked by a lamp-post along Bayfront Avenue, LTA prosecutor Darren Toh said in the document.

Its front plate displayed the number "JTH1825" while its rear plate carried the number "JTH8125".

The officer conducted a check on the number on the rear of the motorcycle in LTA's system and found no record of a vehicle with that number.

The officer then checked the number on the front of the vehicle and found that it was registered in LTA's system using that number.

"Given that the said motorcycle was displaying inconsistent identification marks, the motorcycle was towed and impounded for investigations," Mr Toh said.

Investigations revealed that the motorcycle belonged to Deivanai, who was a work permit holder employed as a security officer at the time.

Mr Toh said that she would commute from Malaysia to Singapore using the motorcycle with its correct number, JTH1825, displayed on both its front and rear.

However, after entering Singapore and reaching the Bukit Timah Expressway, she would swap the "1" and the "8" on the rear plate of the motorcycle so that it would read "JTH8125" instead.

Deivani did this on 14 occasions between October 2019 and November 2019, Mr Toh said. She admitted to doing this to evade ERP charges.

She was convicted of 14 counts of failing to ensure that the identification mark of a vehicle was exhibited at the back of the vehicle in accordance with Singapore's road traffic rules.

Article Credits: CNA

Join SingaporeBikes on Telegram for more of the latest news, special offers, reviews of motorcycles, and more!