Unexpected Showdown on Orchard Road
What Went Down
- While cruising the Pan Island Expressway at 11:23 pm, 23‑year‑old Keng ignored her turn signal and zipped from the second to the first lane.
- She then took the lane that Ms Xu Xiumei was in, stopped right in front of her, and left Xu to slam on the brakes like a drummer in a rock concert.
- Fast forward to 11:29 pm on Anderson Road: Keng switched from the rightmost lane to the leftmost, again blocking Xu and forcing her to brake hard and swerve to the right.
- A minute later on Orange Grove Road, the same pattern repeated—Keng hogged two lanes, drove ahead, and made Xu jostle and eventually stop.
- Both cars stalled for a full minute. Xu then “reversed”—not a parade, but a literal back‑up—and Keng did the same. The horn blared, but Keng kept moving until the two cars met at a U‑turn.
- By 11:45 pm, Keng cut from the third to the second lane, blocking Xu’s path again and momentarily stopping her car. Xu’s emergency brake kicked in for good measure.
- Egg‑on, Keng reversed repeatedly, but Xu kept backing out, fire horn to the sky, even after Keng finally alighted from her BMW right in the midst of a jam‑med Orchard Road.
- The whole fiasco lasted >20 minutes, covering a 21 km stretch. Keng’s mother even watched it unfold in person.
Why It Matters
On September 9, 2015, the dash‑cam recorded the put‑together drama. Keng, who had been studying in the UK at the time, was charged with reckless driving—a pretty heavy accusation when you’re essentially turning a simple commute into a car‑chase thriller.
Aftermath
Ms Xu filed a police report on October 20. Law enforcement counted a rough 22 minutes of high‑speed antics, with Keng’s BMW doing the most daring of all: stopping in the middle of a busy junction without a rider in sight.
Takeaway
Driving in Singapore’s traffic isn’t a slot‑machine game. Two drivers, one overtaking, one bringing the brakes down like fireworks—google “how to survive the traffic jungle” next time.
