Unlicensed driver used dad's details to rent car, then pinned accident on him

Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
Mar 7, 2024

A man who did not have a valid driving licence used the details of his father’s licence to rent a car in January 2023.

Tay Hao Ying, 36, then used the car to earn around $1,700 including by providing paid rides to customers.

Tay was driving the rented car in Punggol the following month when he got into an accident. He lodged a police report, claiming his father was behind the wheel at the time.

He was under investigation for driving without a licence when he reoffended by using his mother-in-law’s identity card details to apply for a subscription with Singtel to receive an iPhone without upfront payment.

He sold the device for around $1,400 and has not made any restitution.

On March 7, Tay was sentenced to two months and four weeks in jail, fined $2,300 and disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for two years from his date of release.

He had pleaded guilty to five charges, including traffic offences and cheating. Fourteen other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Tay had obtained pictures of his father’s identity card and driving licence some time before 2023. On Jan 18, 2023, he went online and used his father’s personal details to apply for a monthly subscription with car rental firm Drive lah.

Tay was driving the car in Punggol on Feb 6, 2023, when he failed to keep a proper lookout and was involved in an accident with another car.

When the other driver approached him, Tay gave the man his father’s particulars without revealing his own identity.

Tay made a police report a week later and lied to officers that his father was driving the rented car at the time.

On Feb 19, 2023, Traffic Police stopped Tay while he was driving the same rented car. When questioned, he admitted he was driving the vehicle on Feb 6.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Eugene Lau told the court that Tay managed to obtain his mother-in-law’s identity card details some time before 2023.

He later took a picture of his wife’s identity card and tampered with it by replacing her details, such as her name and date of birth, with his mother-in-law’s particulars.

Tay went online on Feb 21, 2023, and used the picture of the forged identity card to apply for a subscription with Singtel, so he could receive an iPhone without payment upfront.

The next day, he went to a Singtel shop at Causeway Point shopping mall in Woodlands to collect the device.

The DPP said: “He presented a letter of authorisation which he had forged in his mother-in-law’s name, and lied that she had... authorised him to collect the iPhone.

“He (later) sold it at a... shop in the vicinity of Geylang for about $1,400.” 

Tay, who is out on $15,000 bail, is expected to start serving his sentence on April 8.