THERE was a man in the driver's seat of this taxi, and he died at the wheel.

He had pointed a weapon at the cabby driving the Premier taxi early yesterday morning, then forced him out.

The carjacker sped off, but met his tragic end when the vehicle hit a brick wall.

The 'gun' he had pointed at cabby Ivan Loy Keng Yen turned out to be a toy.

Mr Loy, a taxi driver for the past eight years, was just starting his morning shift yesterday at 5.05am.

The 41-year-old stopped his Skoda Superb along the road next to Block 10, Telok Blangah Crescent - near his Block 16 home - to buy a copy of the Chinese daily, Lianhe Zaobao, from a news-stand there.

The carjacker seized the opportunity to slip into the driver's seat of the unattended vehicle.

Mr Loy rushed back and confronted the man, who was fiddling with the gear stick.

That was when the man, who was wearing a brown top and looked to be in his late 30s, pointed what looked like a gun at him.

'I felt very frightened and walked away quickly,' the cabby told The Straits Times.

Another taxi had pulled up behind the Premier cab to drop off a passenger.

On seeing this, Mr Loy ran over to Mr Ong Ah Guan's vehicle and told him what had happened.

Just as he got into Mr Ong's cab, his own hijacked silver taxi sped off. Mr Ong's blue cab gave chase for the next 10 minutes, at speeds of up to 100kmh, around the Telok Blangah area.

But the Skoda proved to be too fast. They lost sight of it somewhere along Telok Blangah Way.

Later, they found it - wrecked. It had come to an abrupt stop, its front completely flattened against Keppel Golf Link's 5m-tall retaining wall along the junction of Telok Blangah Road and Henderson Road.

Police are investigating the bizarre incident.

It is not clear why the man hijacked the cab, which had only about $50 in cash and coins inside.

The man had no identification papers on him when he was prised out of the Skoda. He is believed to have had a history of mental illness.

There were also no skid marks on the road in front of the wall, which suggested that the brakes were not applied before the crash.

The Skoda Superb, with a 2.5-litre turbodiesel engine, is capable of a top speed of 223kmh.

From the state of the wreckage, it must have been travelling at a speed well in excess of 120kmh.

Its right front and back doors were flung about 5m away, while the steering wheel was found half a metre away.

When Singapore Civil Defence Force officers arrived, they found the man trapped between the dashboard and the driver's seat.

He did not seem to be breathing and was pronounced dead by paramedics at 5.35am.

Using a hydraulic spreader cutter, the officers took about 30 minutes to extricate him.

It was later found that he had injured his spine, and had multiple fractures on all limbs, bruises to his chest as well as open fractures on both legs.

Police recovered some orange plastic pellets and broken pieces of the toy gun.

Contacted yesterday, Premier Taxis general manager Lim Chong Boo said the company would be waiving Mr Loy's rental fee for yesterday.

'We will also assign him another vehicle as the incident is not his fault,' he said.

The one-year-old Skoda has to be written off, at a cost to the company of between $40,000 and $50,000, he added.

carolynq@sph.com.sg

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHRISTOPHER TAN

CARJACKER MOVED OFF...THEN THE CHASE WAS ON, SINGAPORE