Bus driver arrested in fatal Bishan accident
The driver of the bus that hit a stationary car in Bishan on Monday, killing its driver, has been arrested, reported The Straits Times (ST).
Chinese paper Lianhe Wanbao wrote that the bus driver, reportedly a Malaysian, was arrested for "causing death by a rash act". It added that he escaped the accident unscathed and is now out on bail.
61-year-old Lim Tau Han was killed when his stationary car was hit by a double-decker bus at the slip road near Bishan MRT Station on Monday afternoon.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) told Yahoo! Singapore that he was found trapped in his seat and had to be removed from the scene by SCDF officers, while his wife, Wong Tew Juan, 59, who was in the passenger seat, was sent to Tan Tock Seng Hospital with swollen legs and a fractured right arm.
She was discharged on Monday morning, Wanbao said.
No other injuries were reported, according to checks done with the SCDF and the police.
The accident occurred at the junction between Bishan Road and Bishan Street 14 while the retired couple was going home after a day out shopping, wrote the Chinese evening daily.
23-year-old Low Guan You was travelling on another bus and passed the scene of the accident at about 6:30pm.
He told Yahoo! Singapore that the entire double-decker bus had cleared the railing on the side of the road and was straddling the sidewalk.
“The entire bus was on the sidewalk, and it nearly hit the MRT line,” said the undergraduate, adding that a tow truck was on the scene by that time, and staff were trying to work out how to remove the double-decker bus from the sidewalk.
Low also said that the scene caused slight traffic congestion at the junction where the accident happened.
22-year-old Gabriel Benjamin, who was on the way to Bishan stadium, said the windscreen of the bus was at the barricade overlooking the MRT train tracks.
He added that he "saw a lot of white paint on the road, the white car boot had buckets of white paint in it." He saw the police cordon off the area and there were at least 25 people at the scene.
SBS Transit's senior vice president for corporate communications Tammy Tan said the operator is in touch with the car's passenger "to find out how she is and to see how we can render assistance".
"We are also trying to get in touch with the family of the driver and are assisting the police with their investigations," she said. "We are very sorry that this has happened. Our immediate focus is on helping the injured."
TodayOnline cited eyewitness accounts of the SBS double-decker bus losing control while trying to merge into a slip road. According to the report, the bus then hit the side of the deceased driver’s stationary car that was headed toward Bishan Street 22.
