The following article was published in the Straits Times on 10 Sep 2007.
More trucks caught with too many workers aboardCarolyn Quek
10 September 2007
Straits Times
With a construction boom on, contractors are rushing workers from site to site
FOUR years since the tightening of the rules to enhance the safety of workers being ferried in pickup trucks, the situation seems little better.
Last year, almost 300 trucks were caught with too many workers on board, up from 262 in 2005.
And with already 182 caught at the end of July, the numbers look set to hit a fresh high at year's end.
Between 2005 and this year thus far, eight workers have died in accidents while being ferried.
A Land Transport Authority (LTA) spokesman said: 'While the LTA and the Traffic Police will conduct strict enforcement against goods vehicle owners who violate safety rules, these owners also have a big role to play in proactively taking measures to enhance the safety of their workers carried at the back of vehicles.'
Industry players said that with the current construction boom, companies were taking on more projects than they had resources for - which has put more workers on the roads as contractors rush them from site to site to complete jobs on schedule.
The 145,000 foreign construction workers here are set to be joined by up to 50,000 more, who will stream in over the next few years for the building of mega projects like the integrated resorts.
Mr Raymond Lim, 50, director of Jackly Engineering, said that to be cost-effective, his lorries had to do double duty - transport both materials and workers.
Putting workers on buses made it safer and more comfortable for them, but buses cannot carry materials, said Mr Lim, who has 70 to 80 foreign workers on his payroll.
Another obstacle to using buses for workers: red tape.
Boon Yang Electrical's general manager, Mr Alex Sim, 35, said sensitive worksites required official clearance for vehicles, so hiring buses to transport workers added to the paperwork.
The issue has come under scrutiny since an accident last month in which a foreign worker was killed and his fellow passengers injured when their pickup truck was hit by a car. The truck spun around, flinging out the men who were on the cargo deck, and then turned turtle.
Tragically for the workers, the truck was not even their usual mode of transport, the vehicle's driver, Mr Chan Guang Quan, told The Straits Times yesterday.
They were usually ferried to their worksite in Bishan in buses, but had been deployed to another building project in Changi that day to lend help there.
Mr Chan, 42, said that while some workers were still on medical leave, most were already back at work.
He added: 'We are trying not to think about the accident so that we can move on with life.'
The accident triggered a debate online and letters to the media, decrying the practice of using pickup trucks to ferry workers around. It was tantamount to treating them no better than animals, these people said.
Back in 2002, following similar accidents, this was exactly the sentiment expressed in letters to The Straits Times Forum pages.
One recent letter writer, Mr Paul Staes, likened the ferrying of workers on cargo decks to transporting cattle.
The LTA put in place regulations in 2003 to set up minimum standards of safety and comfort for workers being transported, but there were still five deaths last year.
Four years on, the suggestions from safety experts, volunteer groups and others on improving safety remain similar. They have called for:
Seats along the sides of the vehicle, just like those in army trucks, which can be folded down when not in use;
Side railings that rise higher than the heads of seated passengers; and
Canopies for all lorries and pickups to shield workers from the elements.
All these features can be dismantled and companies have to pay only once to have them fitted.
Transport analyst K. Raguraman of the National University of Singapore said the system - maintenance of the trucks, alternatives and cost - cried out for a 'proper study'.
To be fair, said construction company bosses, some companies do provide good, safe transport.
United Engineering (UE), Lee Metal Group and Straits Construction, for instance, ferry their workers to and from worksites in buses.
But these companies' spokesmen said they could do this because they were relatively large, had big projects and enjoyed economies of scale, unlike smaller contractors.
For now, if making workers' transport safer remains intractable, calls have gone out to at least make it more comfortable.
Ms Braema Mathi, who chairs research and policy of migrant workers' rights group Transient Workers Count Too, has urged companies to build canopies on their pickups and lorries.
She said: 'I do not know how effective the workers can be if they are wet and ill.'
At least one company is going some way towards keeping its vehicles in good shape so they can run safely.
Stacon, which hires a dozen workers, puts $600 a month into maintaining its four lorries.
Its general manager, Mr Eddie Lim, 44, said: 'This money cannot be saved. If we do, there will be more problems in the future.'
Guidelines to ensure safety THE Road Traffic Act bars goods vehicles from being used as a means of private passenger transport, but it allows the owners of such vehicles to transport their workers to and from their place of work.
The Land Transport Authority laid down the following rules in April 2003 to ensure the safety of these workers:
They must be seated no more than 3.2m off the ground and in such a way that they will not fall off.
Each worker must have at least 0.372sqm of floor space, slightly bigger than a full page of this newspaper.
The goods vehicle must stay within a 60kmh speed limit when carrying workers.
It must not carry more workers than it is licensed to.
If goods are also being transported, they must be secured.
Open lorries with a maximum laden weight of 3,500kg or under must have side railings along the sideboards on the cargo deck.
When these rules came into force, the number of cases of overloading fell by almost half - from 508 in 2003 to 262 in 2005. But the number inched up to 293 last year; in the first seven months of this year alone, the figure has already hit 182.
In 2004, the year after the rules took effect, no deaths were reported in accidents involving workers being transported, although 87 of them were hurt. In 2005, two died and 67 were injured, while last year, five died and 76 were injured.
