‘I dreaded when the phone rang’: Traffic Police fatal accident officer

SINGAPORE – Every time his phone rang, Senior Staff Sergeant Roizman Mohamed Posari knew it meant yet another family would be grieving.

Working at the Traffic Police’s (TP) fatal accident investigation team for three years as a senior investigation officer, Senior Staff Sgt Roizman would be activated only when someone died.

Sometimes, the grief is amplified when more than one person is killed in an accident.

That was the case when Senior Staff Sgt Roizman got a call after midnight on Aug 11, 2023.

A man who was driving up to 140kmh on a slip road from the CTE had lost control of his car and crashed into a tree. The impact was so great that it split the vehicle in two.

The crash killed the passengers, a couple, both 26.

In 2025, the driver, Ong Wei Long, was sentenced to two years’ jail after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing the deaths of Ms Shannon Lim Xin Rong and her boyfriend, Mr Tan Bing Quan.

Ong, who suffered spine fractures, will also be disqualified from driving for 10 years after his release from prison.

Now with TP’s patrol unit, Senior Staff Sgt Roizman said: “I was shocked when I saw the car split in half. Debris was all over the place, with a police tent covering a body on the grass patch.”

He dreaded telling the victims’ families the news. “I thought about how their parents spent so much time raising them, making sure they had proper lives ahead of them, for it all to be cut short because of this reckless accident.”

When Senior Staff Sgt Roizman met Mr Tan’s brother, the latter felt totally at a loss, having just seen his brother at a family dinner before the tragedy.

“(Mr Tan) said bye to his family and never came back. His brother told me he did not know what to tell his parents,” he recalled.

He also met Ms Lim’s parents at the hospital where their daughter was warded with serious injuries. She died later that month after being declared brain dead.

Senior Staff Sgt Roizman, who has four sons aged eight to 15, said: “Sometimes, when I’m alone, I would cry because of the loss these families have suffered.”

He added: “I’ve had to learn to remain composed and calm, especially when in front of the victims’ relatives.”

Singapore’s roads are now at their most dangerous in years, with traffic deaths hitting a 10-year high of 149 in 2025 compared with 141 in 2016.

Senior Staff Sgt Roizman said these statistics are not just numbers. “They represent someone’s husband, wife or child. So, I dreaded it every time the phone rang because it meant someone had died.”

He worries that, when seeing the figures, the public might accept it as “just another death”.

But he added: “This can happen to my family, to yours, to anyone’s.”