Originally Posted by enlightment

I have read quite a bit of this on whether road traffic offence is a criminal record. Let me try to dispel the misinformation. I was also jailed for a road traffic offence, so I can understand how some of you feel. not to worry you will be much more relieved by the end of this post.

What is a criminal record?
A criminal record is a record of conviction by the court given to someone found guilty of a registrable offence. This is found in the three schedules, basically a list of offences that are registrable. They are among things like theft, cheating etc. For my own purposes I was reading under the road traffic act, and that there are only two that exist in the list and they are for causing death with a vehicle and the other is taking other people's vehicle without consent. So drink driving and others are not inside which is good news.

Drink driving is not a reg offence!
So drink driving is NOT a registrable offence and there is no court record of the conviction. Only the involved departments such as TP will enforce the keeping of the record internally.

"Amendment to the bill"
A bit of where this was coming from. In 2005, they felt it was not necessary to stigmatize people who commit minor or regulatory offences which was why the made that amendment. this is the excerpt of what I have read and think its the most important;

"21 The effect of section 7F is that when a person is asked about his criminal record, that question will be taken to refer only to a criminal record as defined in the RCA, that is, the record of convictions for registrable offences. A person who has committed only non-registrable offences can say he has no criminal record. A person who has committed some registrable and some non-registrable offences is only obliged to disclose his registrable offences. MHA is currently working with all Ministries to ensure that the list of registrable offences is updated and contains the more serious offences, leaving the minor regulatory offences as non-registrable. This approach ties with what Government is doing though the Ministry of Law which, together with the Attorney-General's Chambers, is spearheading a drive to decriminalise minor, regulatory offences."

based on what it was saying, if you committed non-registrable offences you can safely say you have no criminal record. This should apply when you are looking for a job when they ask whether you have a conviction.

I even went to the extent of calling the criminal records office to check just to give me a sense of security. It was eventually good news for me so far.

Hope this will let you guys understand the differences and reduce your worries. And I could understand totally how you guys feel those who are jailed for road traffic offences. I have just came out of jail two days ago and it was one of the worst time in my life...........