Woman swops two digits on her motorcycle licence plate to avoid ERP charges, gets jail

SINGAPORE – A Malaysian woman who swopped two digits on her motorcycle licence plate to avoid Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges was sentenced to three weeks’ jail on May 10.

Over four months in 2019 and 2020, Deivanai Karunanithi, 28, committed 68 ERP-related offences and five illegal parking offences with the altered plate.

She failed to fit an in-vehicle unit on her motorcycle, which is compulsory for foreign-registered motorcycles.

However, the ERP violations were not picked up as cameras captured the false rear licence plate.

Deivanai is the first person to be convicted over the use of a foreign-registered vehicle affixed with false licence plates for purposes of evading detection of unlawful activity.  

She pleaded guilty to 14 charges of failing to ensure that the identification mark of a vehicle was correctly exhibited at the back of her vehicle.

She received a week’s jail sentence for each charge, with the court ordering three of the sentences to run consecutively.

Land Transport Authority (LTA) prosecutor Darren Toh said that one of its senior enforcement officers spotted a parked foreign-registered motorcycle in Bayfront Avenue at about 5pm on Feb 21, 2020.

The officer noted that the motorcycle displayed an identification mark of JTH1825 in the front, but JTH8125 in the rear, and found that only the first vehicle number was registered. The motorcycle was impounded for investigations. 

Mr Toh said investigations revealed that the registered owner of the vehicle was Deivanai, who was at that time a security officer holding a work permit.

She would enter Singapore with the correct identification mark on both the front and rear of the motorcycle, but after passing through the Singapore Customs and upon reaching the Bukit Timah Expressway, she would swop the numerals “1” and “8” on the rear of the motorcycle.

“The accused admitted that she had done so in order to evade ERP charges,” Mr Toh said.

He added that from LTA’s records, the 68 ERP related offences and five illegal parking offences Deivanai committed occurred between October 2019 and February 2020, when the vehicle had the incorrect identification mark on its rear.

Offenders who fail to ensure that the identification mark of a vehicle is correctly exhibited according to the Road Traffic (Motor Vehicles, Registration and Licensing) Rules can be fined up to $1,000, jailed for up to three months, or both.

Repeat offenders can be fined up to $2,000, jailed for up to six months, or both.

ALSO READ: To 'look nice' or evade detection by speed cameras? Motorists spotted with small licence plates draw scrutiny

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.