A 48-hour hunt for errant motorists conducted by Malaysian traffic police last weekend netted 3,000 Singaporeans — including those with unpaid summonses and those holding arrest warrants.
Malay Mail reports that the federal traffic police kicked off their early-year offensive last Friday and Saturday, aiming to finally catch Singaporean drivers, who topped the list of unsettled summonses among other drivers from Indonesia, Brunei and Thailand. Apparently, Singaporeans accumulated 184,024 unpaid summonses and 3,423 arrest warrants since 2010. Mainly for speeding.
Malaysian traffic police noted that some of the motorists come to the country thinking that its the autobahn — they get their cars tuned up and test drive their cars on the four-lane highways.
Some Singaporeans even tried to wriggle their way out of paying the fine by offering lame excuses like claiming that the car wasn’t theirs, or that it was a rental, or outrightly saying that they weren’t aware of their outstanding summons. They paid on the spot after the police told them they could only collect their vehicles from the station after paying up.
The operation bore fruit it seems — 3,000 Singaporeans settled 3,275 summonses. They paid fines close to RM200,000 (SGD64,276).
