DRIVER WHO CUT MAN IN HALF IN GRUESOME ACCIDENT JAILED 4 WEEKS

Ms Ma Kah Yian, a 45 year-old van driver, was sentenced to 4 weeks jail and a 5 year driving ban after she killed a man in a most gruesome accident on 26 Feburary last year.

On 26 February last year, Ma was traveling along Woodlands Avenue 2. At the same time, Mr Annamalai Jeevanantham, 51, had parked his lorry in a vehicle bay along that same road to have lunch with a colleague. The vehicle bay is a section of road where authorized vehicles are allowed to stop.

When the South Indian workers finished their food, they tried to collect some cones they had placed behind the lorry. At that moment, Ma’s vehicle had just exited the SLE onto the straight stretch of road where the 2 men were.

Inexplicably, Ma chose that moment while she was driving to reach for a pink coloured cloth placed on the right of her dashboard. Her loss of focus lasted 4 seconds, but this was enough to send her van veering out of its path and into the path of Mr Annamalai and his colleague.

The van smashed into Mr Annamalai, barely missing his colleague. The impact severed the man’s body into two and flung the upper part of his body into the van’s passenger seat. Ma screamed in horror at what she had done and hurried out of the vehicle.

Mr Annamalai died on the spot.

During the court proceedings, Ma submitted a letter to express her remorse for the accident, claiming that she had wanted to end her life on several occasions. Upon handing out her sentence, the judge told Ma to serve her sentence and put the unfortunate accident behind her.

Ma could have been jailed up to two years, or fined, or both.