Jailed: Bus driver who drank vodka while driving, beat 6 red lights and caused 4 near-collisions

A bus driver sipping on vodka, running red lights and causing near collisions? Sounds like a case in Russia, a country that’s made insane dashcam footages an industry — but nay, this bus driver was in fact an SBS Transit employee in Singapore.

Yesterday, 27-year-old Nagibullah Raja Saleem was sentenced to 15 months in jail, as well as slapped with a fine of $1,000 and a 10-year driving ban — all for drink driving, rash driving, and using his mobile phone while driving a bus full of passengers.

Channel NewsAsia reported that CCTV cameras on the bus caught Nagibullah’s reckless deeds while he was driving SBS Transit service 162 on Jun 29 last year. His perilous journey seemed like something out of Grand Theft Auto, as District Judge Kenneth Yap described, comparing the footage to an “action movie or video game”.

This was what transpired:

• Nagibullah drank alcohol before his shift started at 3:30pm that day.
• While driving along Orchard Turn towards Orchard Road, his bus encroached into oncoming traffic.
• The bus swerved left and right, causing four near collisions along Keppel Road and on the Central Expressway (CTE). He also beat six red lights.
• Passengers shouted at Nagibullah and threatened to report him, but the man ignored them and continued sipping from a 330ml bottle of blackcurrant vodka at least six times throughout the two-hour journey that started from 4:15pm.
• He fell asleep for about a minute at the wheel.
• When his bus arrived at the Shenton Way bus terminal at the end of his shift, he drove against the flow of traffic and parked carelessly.
• A colleague who checked on him found Nagibullah sitting at the wheel with a bottle of vodka.
• After the colleague re-parked the bus, he called the police to report Nagibullah. Officers noted that he was flushed in the face, with bloodshot eyes and slurred speech.
• After a breathalyzer test, he was found to have consumed 2.4 times the legal limit of alcohol.

The former bus driver’s lawyer, however, argued that the drunken episode was an isolated case — the man had been a star performer who was handpicked to be part of a publicity video for the Land Transport Authority. Nagibullah’s breakdown was apparently triggered by months of arguments with his ex-girlfriend, who he had a heated argument with before his shift.

Nonetheless, Judge Yap asserted that the driver had been “highly irresponsible” and broke “every rule in the book”, thus the stern sentence.