Drink driving penalties
This is one of the few clusters the statute answers completely. Drink driving carries a minimum fine as well as a maximum, a disqualification the court must order, and — after enough prior convictions — disqualification for life. Being in charge of a vehicle without driving it is a separate, lower band under its own section. Neither can be compounded: the route is a court.
THE ROUTE
Neither section can be settled without a court
Both are absent from the list of sections that may be compounded. There is no version of this notice that offers a composition.
COURT ONLYDISQUALIFICATIONDISQUALIFIED FOR LIFE
CONSEQUENCE
A minimum fine, a mandatory disqualification, and a life ban
This section states a floor as well as a ceiling — a court cannot go below it — and it must order a disqualification, departing from that only for reasons the Act calls special. After enough prior convictions the disqualification is for life.
Road Traffic Act 1961 (2020 Rev Ed), s.67(1)
Most pages on this site have to explain why a figure is a ceiling rather than a price. This one does not, because there is no composition figure to explain. Neither section appears in the list of sections the composition rules name, so there is no route that ends in paying a sum and going home. Whatever arrives in the post, the matter is going to a court, and the numbers on this page are the limits within which that court works.
Those limits are unusual in one respect that changes how the whole cluster reads. Almost every other offence on this site states only a maximum, leaving everything below it to the court. Drink driving states a minimum as well. A court sentencing within this section cannot go below the floor the section fixes, and on a second or subsequent conviction the section raises both the floor and the ceiling, and states the imprisonment term as a requirement rather than as an alternative to the fine.
The disqualification is the part people underestimate
The section does not leave disqualification to the court’s general discretion. It requires one, for a minimum period which itself rises for a repeat offender, and the only way past it is a finding of what the Act calls special reasons — a narrow door, and not one this site can tell you whether you are through. Where a person has been convicted often enough, the disqualification is for life. That rung belongs to the driving section alone; the in-charge section contains nothing like it, and this site never attaches it there.
The two sections are also linked in a way that catches people out. The definition of a repeat offender for the driving section counts an earlier conviction under either section, so a previous in-charge conviction can put a later drink-driving conviction into the repeat band. That definition is quoted below rather than paraphrased, because its scope is the whole of its effect.
THE BANDS
What each section states
Pick the section first. s.67 is driving or attempting to drive; s.68 is being in charge of a vehicle without driving it, and it is a separate, lower band.
Second+ is the section’s own “second or subsequent conviction” band. Under s.67 only, enough earlier convictions turn the disqualification into a life ban; s.68 has no equivalent provision.
COURT ONLY
- Fine — minimum to maximum
- $2,000 – $10,000
- Imprisonment
- 12 months maximum(or a fine, or both)
- Disqualification
- 2 years minimum
The lower figure is a statutory minimum, not a typical amount.
What this means
- s.67 (driving, or attempting to drive) — first offence. This section is not compoundable: it is absent from R29 r.2(a), so the route is a court.
- Disqualification: a minimum of 2 years, which the court must order.
DATED · Act 12 of 2023 wef 01/06/2024 touches s.67(1)(a)/(4) and s.68(1)(a)/(5) directly; s.67(1)'s own money/imprisonment figures otherwise carry only the dateless [19/2019] marker
Road Traffic Act 1961 (2020 Rev Ed), s.67(1) — “a fine of not less than $2,000 and not more than $10,000”
These are the figures the sections themselves state. Neither section is compoundable, so no composition ceiling is shown: there is nothing for one to cap. Whether a court departs from the mandatory disqualification for “special reasons”, and what sentence it passes inside these limits, is a matter for the court and not something any site can predict.
All amounts are Singapore dollars (SGD). Figures quoted from an instrument are reproduced as the instrument writes them.
THE SECTIONS THEMSELVES
What each one prohibits
Quoted rather than paraphrased, because the difference between driving and being in charge is the difference between the two bands.
- s.67 — driving
- Any person who, when driving or attempting to drive a motor vehicle on a road or other public place — (a) is unfit to drive in that he or she is under the influence of drink, a drug, a psychoactive substance or an intoxicating substance to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of the vehicle; or (b) has so much alcohol in his or her body that the proportion of it in his or her breath or blood exceeds the prescribed limit, shall be guilty of an offence
- s.68 — in charge
- Any person who when in charge of a motor vehicle which is on a road or other public place but not driving the vehicle — (a) is unfit to drive ...; or (b) has so much alcohol ... exceeds the prescribed limit, shall be guilty of an offence
- “Repeat offender”, for this section
- a repeat offender means a person who is convicted of an offence under this section and who has been convicted (whether before, on or after 1 November 2019) on one other earlier occasion of — (a) an offence under subsection (1) or section 68; or (b) an offence under subsection (1) as in force immediately before 1 November 2019
REFUSING A TEST
Two different refusal offences, priced differently
Refusing a roadside preliminary breath test has its own penalty. Refusing an evidential specimen does not — it borrows this section’s.
There are two refusals in this part of the Act and they are priced by two different mechanisms. Refusing a preliminary test at the roadside is its own offence with its own stated fine range and imprisonment limb, rising for a second or subsequent conviction. Refusing to provide an evidential specimen states no penalty of its own at all: the Act instead directs that the person be punished as if the offence charged were the driving offence, or the in-charge offence, according to which of the two the circumstances point to. Declining the second test is therefore not a way of choosing a lesser charge, and the Act says so in terms.
- Preliminary test — first offence
- $1,000 – $5,000or up to 6 months, or both
- Preliminary test — second or subsequent
- $3,000 – $10,000or up to 12 months, or both
- Evidential specimen
- A person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to provide a specimen when required to do so pursuant to this section shall be guilty of an offence and if it is shown that at the time of any accident ... or of his or her arrest ... (a) he or she was driving or attempting to drive a motor vehicle ..., he or she shall be liable on conviction to be punished as if the offence charged were an offence under section 67; or (b) he or she was in charge of a motor vehicle ..., he or she shall be liable on conviction to be punished as if the offence charged were an offence under section 68
DATED · Act 12 of 2023 wef 01/06/2024 touches s.67(1)(a)/(4) and s.68(1)(a)/(5) directly; s.67(1)'s own money/imprisonment figures otherwise carry only the dateless [19/2019] marker
Road Traffic Act 1961 (2020 Rev Ed), s.69(4) — “a fine of not less than $1,000 and not more than $5,000”
WHAT THE LAW DOES NOT SAY
Why there is no composition figure on this page
NOT IN THE LAW
Drink driving and reckless driving cannot be compounded
Reckless or dangerous driving, drink driving, and being in charge of a vehicle while over the limit are all absent from the enumerated list of compoundable sections. None of them can be settled by paying a composition, and there is no version of the notice that offers you one. The route for all three is a court, which is also why they are the offences that carry a statutory minimum fine and a disqualification the court must order.
Road Traffic (Composition of Offences) Rules (R 29), r.2(a) — the list contains no “67”