Police investigating after car flashes racist remark in Woodlands

The police are investigating after a video of a private-hire car flashing a racist message at its rear windscreen made its rounds online.

In the video uploaded to the SG Road Vigilante Facebook page on Friday (Nov 21), the offensive remark can be seen repeatedly scrolling on the silver Honda Spada's rear-mounted LED panel.

The incident is believed to have occurred on Nov 20 along Woodlands Centre Road.

The 53-year-old driver, who wanted to be known only as Maman, told Shin Min Daily News he was unaware of the vulgar message that was displayed.

"It was supposed to display the words 'Support Liverpool.' I started work at 7.30pm the day before yesterday and didn't get off until 2am the next day. I didn't notice anything unusual at the time," the driver reportedly said.

He only realised something was amiss after a relative sent him a video of the offensive message that was displayed.

Driver says LED display hacked

Maman told the Chinese daily he checked the display soon thereafter, but found that the text had returned to its original message.

"The text supporting Liverpool is preset; once you stop the car and restart the engine, any text will revert to the preset message," he explained. He suspected that someone may have hacked into the display screen. 

The driver said he picked up a female passenger at around 9pm, but was not informed of the issue. Instead, he noted that she lodged a complaint directly with ride-hailing platform TADA. 

"I am not a racist. Many of my neighbours and friends are Chinese. Besides, my job is to drive passengers, and so many of my passengers are Chinese. How could I possibly use such words and ruin my own livelihood," said Maman. 

Responding to queries from AsiaOne, the police confirmed that a report was lodged and said investigations are ongoing.

A TADA spokesperson told AsiaOne the company is aware of the incident.

"Based on our internal investigations, we understand that the driver claims his LED display app was compromised, and he has also shared his account of the incident publicly on Facebook," said the spokesperson.

"We have advised him to lodge a police report, and we will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities as they look into the matter."

According to the Land Transport Authority (LTA), any person who illegally modifies or uses such vehicles may be fined up to $5,000 and/or jailed for up to three months. The penalties for repeat offenders are doubled.

AsiaOne has reached out to LTA for comment. 

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xingying.koh@asiaone.com