Underage Teen Used Mum’s Account to Book Tribercar for a Joy Ride & Got Into an Accident Instead

By
Charleen Teh
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Last Updated on 2022-01-08 , 2:03 pm

On 6 April of last year, a 17-year-old boy used his mother’s Tribecar account to rent a vehicle to go out for a joy ride, only to land himself in an (un)happy accident with a parked car.

I don’t know how to put this nicely, but… My boy, you do understand that driving classes exist for a reason, right?

The teenager, now officially 18—which doesn’t sound so Sweet 18 anymore—has pleaded guilty on today (4 Jan) to three traffic-related charges, and a fourth charge of unauthorised computer access.

If you think that’s all, there might still be a fifth charge waiting for him.

Driving Blind

To rev up the figurative engines, how did this series of events begin?

Apparently, the 17-year-old teen regularly helped his mother to rent cars through the mobile application called Tribecar.

Tribecar is an hourly car rental platform, one of the biggest car-sharing companies in Singapore in fact, with over 950 vehicles parked at more than 700 locations, and the rental rates can be as low as $0.50 per hour.

Sounds like a good deal to me, at least it’s less annoying than the times where rented bicycles littered the walking pavements.

However, since the teen was underage, he didn’t own his own Tribecar account, but he possessed his mother’s login details.

Therefore, in March 2021, he changed the email attached to the account to his own to ensure that his mother would be none the wiser if he made any bookings.

Well, you know how the story unfolds next.

Driving Someone up the Wall

The teen proceeded to rent a Honda Stream on 6 April 2021, collecting the car from a multi-storey car park in Jurong West to go out for a joy ride the next morning.

After driving around for about one-and-a-half hours, he slid into a Woodlands petrol station and tried to park the vehicle.

His foresight, or well, his hindsight was 20/20, because he failed to keep his eyes on the road ahead and accidentally hit the parked car in front of him. He apologised to the driver of the damaged vehicle and exchanged contact numbers, but the number was clearly a fib since the call didn’t manage to go through.

After the teen’s mother discovered that her son had driven a car, she had to clean up his mistakes of course. She contacted Tribecar and paid S$500 as compensation for the damages caused.

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Driven to a Corner

While compensation has been given, this did not liberate the teen from his charges.

Since the teenager had no previous convictions, the prosecutor stated that he did not to object the possibility of a probation suitability report, especially when the teenager had expressed his remorse for his decisions.

When the judge weighed in on the matter, he told the teen that he had done something very foolish, and it was fortunate that no one was injured.

After all, the teen was not even eligible for a driving license back then, which effectively meant that he was more so a danger to himself due to the lack of driving know-hows then to anyone else.

Worse still, he might have jeopardised his own chances at ever getting a license with this tar stain on his record. What a bumper, I mean, bummer.

The judge then adjourned the sentencing to February after calling for a report assessment where the teen’s probation suitability was concerned.

I suppose it’s not to late to turn back after driving himself into the south wall.

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Charleen Teh
Email: [email protected]