Some 18 months after a young car saleswoman died, the man who had test-driven the sports car involved in the fatal accident appeared in court yesterday.

Regan Lee Da Wen, 26, was charged with causing sales consultant Angelia He Xueli's death by dangerous driving.

Ms He, 22, died after the Mazda MX-5 open-top convertible flipped over in an accident along Upper Paya Lebar Road on Oct 29, 2005.

Lee, a warehouse supervisor, allegedly drove the two-seater car at speed, causing it to veer towards the right, mount a centre island and go onto the opposite side before hitting a black BMW.

It then flipped over and hit a van. Ms He, who had been at the job for about four months, died about an hour later in hospital.

Lee was recently in the news when he put an Internet posting in mycarforum.com last month asking car enthusiasts for advice on two high-performance cars he was eyeing - a Volkswagen Golf GTI and a Subaru WRX STI-S.

Someone eventually recalled that he might be the driver in the accident which killed Ms He. It became a hotly debate issue, with angry postings even spilling into other forums such as Sammybov.com and Hardwarezone.

As the debate raged, Hardwarezone's current affairs section had some 63,000 views - more than 50 times the average number that other topics in the section usually attract.

The charge against Lee, under the Road Traffic Act, carries a mandatory jail sentence of up to five years.

Yesterday, Lee was sombre when the charge was read to him.

The prosecution sought bail of $15,000. Lee's lawyer, Mr Justin Tay, sought to reduce it to $8,000.

District Judge Danielle Yeow set it at $10,000. The case was fixed for a pre-trial conference on June 18.

Following the Internet debate last month, Straits Times reader Edmund Khoo Kim Hock expressed dismay on the Forum page that the case had dragged on for 17 months without anyone being charged.

In her reply, the Singapore Police Force's Assistant Director (Media Relations) Audrey Ang said the time taken to investigate traffic accidents will vary, depending on the number of persons to be interviewed, their availability and the evidence that needs to be gathered.

She said there was no minimum or maximum time limit for investigations. In more complex cases, the investigations may stretch more than a year, she said.