287 vehicle-related work injuries between January and May: MOM

SINGAPORE — In the first five months of this year, there were 287 vehicular work injuries — six of which were fatal, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said yesterday.

Vehicular incidents were the top contributor to workplace deaths over the same period. One in five of the more than 400 inspections carried out by the MOM during this period at warehouses, storage yards, factories and construction sites also turned up poor traffic-management practices.

The contraventions mainly involved a lack of segregation between vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and poor control over the keys of vehicles, which could result in the “unauthorised or improper use of vehicles such as forklifts”, said the ministry.

As a result, more than 600 instances of enforcement action — from composition fines to legal prosecution — were taken.

The number of vehicular work injuries in the first five months of this year was 8.3 per cent lower than the 313 recorded in the same period last year, where eight of these injuries resulted in deaths. In 2014, there were a total of 1,098 vehicle-related incidents (15 of which were fatal), but the number of such incidents tumbled to 787 in 2015 (21 of which were fatal). The figure inched up last year to 808 incidents, 22 of which resulted in fatalities.

Minister of State (Manpower) Sam Tan, who joined MOM inspectors on an operation on Monday, said the ministry’s enforcement efforts “are not simply to catch errant workers and employers … but more to teach them how to do the right things on safety and health hazards.”