COMMENT: Come on, Singapore, don't treat our workers like unprotected cattle

Migrant workers have really missed a trick in the last year or so.

They should've lied about their personal circumstances. Rather than say they were off to build a multi-million-dollar investment property, they should've said they were residents of Marine Parade. They would've got a free ride to work.

And the shuttle bus service would've come with all the latest mod cons, too, like windows.

Such luxuries were enjoyed by the folks of Marine Parade, thanks to a free shuttle bus service that started in July 2024 and will end on Nov 20. The free rides were part of a pilot project and apparently served their purpose; the objectives of which remain a little vague.

But let's not digress. Let's get a month of decent commuting travel for our heroic migrant workers before the free shuttle service ends next month. It's very simple, chaps. Just get on the bus with a fake limp and say you're off to the Marine Parade polyclinic.

Now, be warned. The kaypoh driver may test your residency credentials. That's easy. Just say you still miss Goh Chok Tong and there was no need to demolish the Marine Parade library. You'll sound like a native.

If you don't, then you're stuck with the alternative that no one likes to talk about, until there's an accident like the one at Sungei Kadut, where two lorries collided last week and 21 people were taken to hospital.

When 'ferrying' sounds nicer than it is

According to the newspaper reports, one lorry was "ferrying nine passengers". The other lorry was "ferrying 11 passengers".

The word "ferrying" is doing a lot of work there, isn't it? Ferrying sounds positively jaunty, i.e. The Dream Cruises ferried passengers to Thailand. The Cambodian mafia-funded super yacht ferried corrupt politicians to a private island. That kind of thing.

The term conjures images of beaming couples in breezy trousers dragging designer luggage across a red-carpeted gangplank, rather than a dozen migrant workers packed onto the back of an open lorry in the KPE tunnel.

It's rather like saying the Titanic was ferrying passengers into the Atlantic Ocean.

Inconsistent road safety culture

But let's be honest, Singapore has a rather schizophrenic attitude towards road safety and behaviour.

Spend an extra minute or two at a drop-off bay and minds will melt.

But a delivery rider can swerve across three lanes, terrorise kids on a crossing, bump up a curb and send an auntie into the longkang, all with one hand, because he's smoking with the other, while blasting Mandopop ballads from an outsized speaker.

On a balance sheet, we're a first world nation. Inside a car, we've got a baby balanced on our knees in the front seat, whilst Timmy the toddler stands on the back seat to get a better view of the windscreen he's about to sail through when the family saloon whacks the delivery rider's outsized speaker.

It's not so much a third world as it is an alternative reality, a surreal cityscape where it's still considered acceptable to "ferry" migrant workers on the backs of open trucks because a) it's cheaper than those futuristic vehicles with their space-age devices (i.e. minibuses with seatbelts). And b) some workers already have plastic chairs to sit on, which ensures extra comfort (but essentially serve as 007-esque ejector seats in a Sungei Kadut collision).

Cost has always been the fallback position. The common argument is a familiar one. Of course, we'd like to lavish migrant workers with modern transport luxuries like, er, walls, but the additional expenses might not be practical for small enterprises.

Throw in the shortage of bus drivers and basic supply and demand economics prevails. Open lorries are cheaper and more plentiful.

For such literal logic to stand, it should be applied across all industries. We'd like to build more polyclinics, for example, but an ageing population and shrinking fertility rates are increasing cost and manpower challenges, so take auntie to see Ah Beng the Butcher for her colonoscopy instead. Never mind the bloodstained apron, you should see what Ah Beng can do with a carving knife and a lump of old mutton. No offence, Auntie.

Shouldn't wait for tragedy to act

We wouldn't do that. Obviously. Empathy and compassion must trump dollars and cents. For our collective conscience, the optics need to be right. When you see migrant workers huddled together on an open lorry on a stormy expressway, how does it make you feel?

In 2023, the Ministry of Transport responded to two petitions concerning workers being ferried around on lorries, because Singaporeans do care. Instinctively, we know it's wrong. Just as we know that the recent Sungei Kadut collision was a lucky escape for the victims. And for us. Because there were no fatalities. Injuries are easier on the conscience. They can be fixed and forgotten.

We got away with it. This time.

But an empathetic society shouldn't need a death toll to realise that treating our workers like unprotected cattle on trucks isn't the civilised behaviour of a first world nation.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning writer and radio host, a successful author and a failed footballer.