SBS Bus Captain Jailed After Falling Asleep While Driving & Crashing into a Bollard

The dangers of not getting enough rest can be severe, especially for tasks that require high levels of concentration.

An SBS Bus Captain, Shifuddin Bin Hussin, crashed his bus into a bus stop after falling asleep behind the wheel, injuring a few passengers.

He received a sentence of 12 weeks in jail on 22 August, and was also suspended from driving all classes of vehicles for the next five years, according to Shin Min Daily News.

Driver Only Got 4 Hours of Sleep the Night Before

The incident had occured in the afternoon of 8 June 2021, when the 42-year-old bus captain was on his 5.30am rostered shift.

Investigations found that he reached home only around 10pm the previous day, on 7 June.

He managed to fall asleep around 11.30pm, but woke up at 3.30am, before heading to work.

This means that the bus captain got only a total of four hours of sleep the night before the accident.

Dashcam footage from within the bus showed that Shifuddin was driving the bus down Yishun Street 31 around 2.47pm, where he then fell asleep and closed his eyes for three seconds.

This resulted in him losing focus, causing the bus to crash into a cement bollard in front of a bus stop. The impact caused the windshield to break, and also injured a few of the passengers on board.

Passengers Were Taken to The Hospital for Their Injuries

Three of the 10 passengers on the bus at that time suffered injuries, and two were taken to the hospital to be treated for their injuries.

One passenger was an 85-year-old elderly man. The crash caused him to fall onto the ground, and as a result, he was left with a broken left arm and a strained back

Another passenger was a 34-year-old man, who similarly broke his arm and suffered a strained back. He also cut his lip during the accident, but opted to seek his own treatment at a clinic instead of going to the hospital via the ambulance.

The last injured party was a 53-year-old woman who hit the seat in front of her during the abrupt impact, resulting in a facial fracture. She was also sent to the hospital.

Thankfully, it was reported that none of the passengers required any surgery for their injuries.

Bus Captain Cited Having Insufficient Rest Between Shifts as the Reason

Upon assessing the case, the judge sentenced the bus captain to 10-12 weeks in jail, and also ordered a suspension of his license that will prevent him from driving all forms of vehicles for five years.

Shifuddin pleaded for leniency, claiming he was unable to get sufficient rest the night before due to the shift scheduling system that SBS employed.

His plea for a lighter sentence was ultimately denied, as the prosecution had expressed their views that since the accident was ultimately caused by his own lack of sleep, majority of the responsibility should be borne by him.

An SBS Transit spokesperson came forth with a statement, saying that the shift roster system in place always assigns shift to bus captains with at least nine hours of rest time between shifts, and that this protocol was in place in Shifuddin’s case.

They added that the bus captain had been with the company for two years, and has since resigned.

According to SBS Transit, they often remind bus captains to get enough rests between their shifts to ensure they are alert and focused while driving.

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Featured Image: Facebook (Shin Min Daily News)