In what appears to be a strikingly similar incident to the “please-hit-me” car scams elsewhere in the world, a video of a man in Singapore slamming himself onto the bonnet of a car has been making the rounds online.
The car was travelling at a moderate speed along a road when an elderly looking man ran onto its path. The car stopped. The man then inexplicably slams himself onto the car.
The car driver can be heard to be rather surprised by the man’s behaviour.
You can view the video here: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=758207964299014
It is unclear what the man was trying to do but it bears resemblance to insurance scams elsewhere in the world.
The scam is for the scammer to fake injury by hauling himself onto the car and then demand compensation for the fake injuries from the car driver or the driver’s insurance company.
In Taiwan, for example, a young man similarly slammed himself onto a car after it has stopped.
The driver of the car gets out and appears to scold the young man for faking the accident.
The thing to note is that unless there’s a witness or two around, the driver may find it hard to prove his innocence.
One way to avoid such situations is to install a dashboard camera on your car which can then capture the fake accident and help you avoid the hassle of proving your innocence.
As for the man in Singapore, the Singapore Police has been notified about it on its Facebook page.
Mr Ray Tan posted on the page:
“Dear SPF, the public will appreciate if you can send a policeman to find this uncle? He is a BIG traffic hazard and could possibly cause chain collision along this busy road. This is located opposite AMK Library.”
The police responded shortly with this:
“Hi Ray, thank you for bringing this to our attention. Police would like to request for the person who had witnessed the incident to come forward to lodge a police report at any Neighbourhood Police Centre/Post to provide more information so that we can look into the matter.”
Here are some other similar incidents from elsewhere in the world:
