THE current obsession with banning lorries from transporting workers following a recent fatal accident is unreasonable.
The issue of transporting workers in such vehicles should be considered in a balanced way, and we need to take into account the needs of all the concerned parties. For instance, if army personnel can be transported by lorries, why not workers?
Many jumped to hasty conclusions following the fatal accident on June 22, in which three foreign workers died after the lorry they were in skidded and crashed off the Pan-Island Expressway.
Many who are pressing for a ban on using such vehicles to transport workers do not understand the practicalities of operating a small business.
The immediate consequence of restricting worker transport to buses or vans for small construction and service companies is a sharp spike in costs, as these firms are forced to buy vans or small buses and hire additional drivers.
Second, the vehicle population will swell by a few thousand buses and vans.
Assuming that there is a small job that requires five or six workers with some materials to be transported, the company will have to ferry the workers by van to the site and use another lorry to transport the tools and materials.
The van and driver will remain idle for a long stretch until it is time to pick up the workers in the evening.
Are Singaporeans willing to pay for such a sharp increase in costs?
Can Singapore businesses remain competitive?
And what does it say about productivity when transport vehicles and drivers have nothing to do for such long stretches daily?
Tan Lek Lek
Do we have enough buses to go around during e mad rush hour?
Live with it. But I do believe of harsher enforcement of speed limit.
Recently there was bus overturning incident.
I SHARE the sentiments of Mr Stewart Sanjay in his letter last Saturday ("Speeding by lorry drivers the deadliest danger").
Mr Sanjay was spot-on when he mentioned that speeding is the main cause of most accidents involving heavy vehicles. To be fair, however, only a handful of drivers are guilty of speeding.
These days, foreign nationals, mainly from China and India, are employed by companies to transport goods and passengers. These drivers lack experience in handling heavy vehicles and worse, are unfamiliar with our roads.
They speed and take evasive action by jamming on the brake suddenly, resulting in an increasing number of vehicles overturning.
Perhaps the authorities should consider making it compulsory for goods vehicles and heavy vehicles to be fitted with speed limiters. Drivers should also attend defensive driving courses before being allowed to drive heavy vehicles.
Poh Soon Leong
Originally posted by Clivebenss:Jul 2, 2010 - ST Forum
Introduce speed limiters for goods vehicles
I SHARE the sentiments of Mr Stewart Sanjay in his letter last Saturday ("Speeding by lorry drivers the deadliest danger").
Mr Sanjay was spot-on when he mentioned that speeding is the main cause of most accidents involving heavy vehicles. To be fair, however, only a handful of drivers are guilty of speeding.
These days, foreign nationals, mainly from China and India, are employed by companies to transport goods and passengers. These drivers lack experience in handling heavy vehicles and worse, are unfamiliar with our roads.
They speed and take evasive action by jamming on the brake suddenly, resulting in an increasing number of vehicles overturning.
Perhaps the authorities should consider making it compulsory for goods vehicles and heavy vehicles to be fitted with speed limiters. Drivers should also attend defensive driving courses before being allowed to drive heavy vehicles.
Poh Soon Leong
There are speed limiters for heavy vehicles alrdy.
But come to think of it, e written test ruling for foreigners to drive the light vans has to be revised.
Seriously I've ever seen them driving in and out of 2 lanes on expressways and behind is a bus. Or switch lanes w/o signal.
simple point to make: people are not cargo
Originally posted by the Bear:simple point to make: people are not cargo
Then is bear bear cargo?
5-6 sit behind lorry OK lah. Small company, like painting and sending furniture... They cant afford to have a bus to deliver items.
40 people sit big lorry... no way lah.. and mainly to construction sites.. for the whole day... you think 60s meh.... WU SHUO NAN YANG AH! 40 people should hire private bus do pickup liao.
LTA and TP should made tachographs mandatory to be fitted on all commercial vehicles especially those use for ferrying people/workers.
Tachographs allow TP and LTA to carry spot checks on suspected cases of speeding. And also tachograph can be used after an accident to help establish the cause and corroborate eye witness account if neccessary.
This can deters driver of commercial vehicle from playing the "cat and mouse" game.