Hit a car, apologise, get free plane tickets: Truck driver rewarded for his honesty

It may not always be easy to face your mistakes, but one truck driver's decision to own up to sideswiping a car paid off handsomely.

As it turned out, the damaged car belonged to Kiss92 radio DJ Maddy Barber, who decided to launch a month-long "trade-up project", exchanging her broken wing mirror for prizes of increasingly higher value to reward driver Wang Yaowen's honesty.

Wang's final prize? Plane tickets for his wife and two children to fly from China to Singapore to visit him, Kiss92 shared in a Facebook post yesterday (Nov 4).

The generous offer came from Kiss92 fan Thomas Chia, who will be paying for the tickets out of his own pocket.

"He misses his family so much so I thought a family visit for him would be good," Chia told Kiss92.

Touched by Wang's sincere apology

Barber had initially decided to absorb the cost of the broken wing mirror and reward Wang as she was moved by his earnestness, she told The Straits Times.

"There was so much sincerity, goodness and honesty in his voice. Mr Wang took full responsibility for the accident and gave no excuses

"I heard that he was new to Singapore, and I decided to let it go. I just couldn't make him pay for the repairs."

Inspired by the One Red Paperclip project, where Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald started out with a single paperclip and bartered his way to his final trade, a house, Barber kicked off her own trade-up project on Oct 2.

Days later, she managed to trade her broken wing mirror for a brand new handmade teakwood desk set worth over $450.

As the trades went on, the value of the would-be prizes snowballed, from a mattress worth over $1,400 to four luxury gaming chairs worth over $500 each.

Barber even got in on the action herself, offering up a pair of designer shades.

Fellow Kiss92 DJ Divian Nair and executive producer Andre Hoeden also contributed to the cause, donating two designer watches and a golf driver respectively.

As the project came to a close, Chia, a caterer, stepped up with a thoughtful offer of paying for the Wang family's airfare as he felt that the traded items wouldn't exactly be of use to the truck driver, Kiss92 told The Straits Times.

All's well that ends well

And there's more. Restaurant chain Putien will be treating Wang and his family to a free meal.

Parkroyal Collection Pickering has also offered the family a free 4D3N stay while they're here, Kiss92 said.

As for Barber, her quest to reward Wang caught the attention of BMW, which surprised her by repairing her car for free.

In a Facebook post marking the end of this entire heartwarming episode, Kiss92 shared that it was "smiles and tears all around" when they revealed the reward to Wang on Tuesday (Nov 3).

They added: "Thank you Kiss fans for making this possible! Let's continue to spread kindness and positivity!"

kimberlylim@asiaone.com