Cambodia tries to improve troubled roads

December 27, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

In the past ten years, Cambodia's roads - devastated by years of war and neglect - have improved markedly. And as people have become a bit better off, the number of vehicles on the roads has grown. But that means more road deaths than ever before.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael in Phnom Penh

Speakers: Preap Chanvibol, director, department of land transport, Phnom Penh; Sann Socheata, road safety programme officer, Handicap International-Belgium

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

CARMICHAEL: I am standing on Route 5. This is officially Cambodia's most dangerous road in terms of the number of fatalities. Nearly 300 people died on this road last year. I should say it is a very long road, it runs from the capital Phnom Penh and goes a long way west towards the Thai border. Anything that moves really will take to this road, including oxcarts and people on bicycles. So there's a huge speed differential between a lot of these vehicles and driving standards are pretty low in Cambodia. There are only 51 registered driving teachers in the country and last year there were 308,000 new vehicles on the country's roads. So with driving standards low and all these new vehicles clogging up much better, faster roads, the number of road deaths has increased significantly in the last five years. In fact, it's almost doubled from around 900 deaths to 1,700 last year.

There are a lot of obstacles to improvement, which explains why the aim of road safety experts is to slow down the rate of increase.

The head of the government's land transportation department is Preap Chanvibol. He also sits on the National Road Safety Committee.

He says Cambodia has the worst road fatality rate of any nation in the 10 member Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) bloc.

PREAP CHANVIBOL: If we compare with ASEAN, the fatality rate per 10,000 vehicles, the rate is higher than the other ASEAN countries. Up to 2009, the fatality rate is around 12 per 10,000 vehicles.

CARMICHAEL: Preap Chanvibol says the government's approach to reducing road deaths was dictated by statistics that show speeding and alcohol account for more than half of all fatalities.

Head injuries kill many as well, which is no surprise when you consider that 90 per cent of all new registered vehicles are motorbikes.

PREAP CHANVIBOL: We focus on the three cases - these are speed limit, drink driving and helmet wearing, because more than 70 per cent of motorcycle [fatalities include] head injuries. So we focus on helmet wearing also.

CARMICHAEL: Cambodia is a poor country and for that reason most Cambodians use motorbikes rather than cars. But until January 2009 very few of them owned a crash helmet as well.

And fewer still wore it - less than one in five, says Sann Socheata, the road safety programme manager at Handicap International-Belgium, an non government organisation (NGO) that has worked for the past six years with government to reduce road deaths.

But in January 2009 the government brought in a law requiring that all motorbike drivers wear a helmet.

Sann Socheata says that was a significant step forward. Now more than 80 per cent of motorbike drivers wear a helmet during the day and deaths from head injuries have declined as a result.

But, the government's Preap Chanvibol admits, most drivers don't wear helmets at night because the traffic police go home when the sun goes down.

More changes are coming.

From next year traffic police will start working nights and, he says, the government will pass a law that compels motorbike passengers to wear a helmet too.

Sann Socheata says these are important steps and lists a number of other improvements [that are] underway.

SANN SOCHEATA: One of the important interventions is really to increase the capacity of the traffic police in terms of law enforcement, especially for helmet [wearing] and drink driving. And at the same time, very, very recently the government have a kind of willingness and commitment to develop a 10 year action plan - 2011 to 2020 - and this really contributes to the decade of action for road safety for the next ten years.

CARMICHAEL: Work to educate schoolchildren on road safety is also ongoing.

But neither Preap Chanvibol nor Sann Socheata expect fewer people will die in crashes over the next decade, despite their best efforts.

Cambodia's roads have improved so quickly and the number of vehicles has risen so fast that the government's road safety plan is designed merely to slow the rate of increase, not to reverse it.

Sann Socheata says if the road safety plan is properly funded and implemented, it will save nearly 5,000 lives over the next 10 years.

But even then the government expects that 2,200 people will die on the roads in 2020. Route 5 out of Phnom Penh is likely to remain dangerous for a long time yet.

Work safety worsens as Cambodian construction booms

Cambodian workers are seen at a construction site

Thursday, October 09, 2008

...the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, with about 35 percent of the country's 14 million people living on less than 50 US cents a day

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — The race is on to build Phnom Penh's first skyscraper but as the fast-modernising city famous for its graceful colonial skyline transforms, safety standards appear to be stuck in the past.

The construction business in Cambodia is booming, attracting investments of 3.2 billion dollars in the first six months of this year and luring some 40,000 seasonal construction workers from impoverished provinces.

But, as construction worker Chan Vuthy can attest, work safety has deteriorated as buildings spring up.

The day a blade from a malfunctioning saw cut deep into his knee, the 23-year-old was wearing flip-flops, a cloth hat and no protective equipment.

When he stumbled to the bottom of the site, his boss scolded him for recklessness.

He was then fired, and had to spend his savings on a month of hospital treatment.

"Every time other workers and I have accidents, they say we are careless," Chan Vuthy says.

Cambodian construction workers risk their lives for an average wage of two and a half dollars a day, says Sok Sovandeith, president of the Cambodia National Federation of Building and Wood Workers.

There are no laws to force construction enterprises to pay adequate wages so many workers must live on building sites.

Few of them have any training and companies have little incentive to take measures to avoid accidents or use equipment such as hard helmets, work boots or safety harnesses.

"We're very worried about poor working conditions which have not been improved or guaranteed by law," Sok Sovandeith said, adding that construction work is the most dangerous kind of labour in the country.

"We are not happy when workers are not safely equipped. After some inspections, we found a lot of building sites and companies do not give out safety materials."

Many construction companies lay the blame for poor safety on workers who do not protect themselves.

So far the government has sided with businesses, taking no action to ensure better work conditions amid the building boom which has attracted investment from South Korea and China and helped fuel double-digit economic growth.

"The whole country acknowledges that construction is the third gem besides the agriculture and garment sectors to boost the domestic economy," says Im Chamrong, head of Cambodia's General Department of Construction.

"Some construction companies can't afford the safety equipment. We cannot force them to buy it," Im Chamrong says.

With few zoning regulations, new construction projects tower over traditional Khmer homes and the old French villas built in the colonial era.

In June, a South Korean company broke ground on a 52-storey tower slated to be the country's tallest skyscraper when it is completed in 2012, while all across the capital tall buildings are going up.

Once-sleepy boulevards are already crammed with expensive cars driven by the country's growing elite.

But the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, with about 35 percent of the country's 14 million people living on less than 50 US cents a day.

These are the men and women who end up migrating to the capital and risking their lives on building sites for a couple of dollars a day.

There are no statistics for accidents in Cambodia's construction industry, but there are many anecdotes about deaths and injuries to workers.

"There have been a lot of people being killed accidentally, but some companies try to hide the figure of the dead and victims," Sok Sovandeth says, adding the country needs better labour laws to save lives.

"Because workers take what they are offered, no better work conditions are given to them," he adds.

AK-47 Bandits are robbing Phnom Penh dwellers at gunpoint

Monday, September 17, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

A group of armed thieves, toting AK-47 rifles, continue to rob motorcycles at gunpoint in Phnom Penh city. The bandits have no fear of anywhere in the city, and they give police a headache because the police traps could not catch them. Recently again, the group of AK-47 bandits safely conducted another attack by robbing a C-cube 50 motorcycle at 7:45 PM on 15 September, along a street located in Trapeang Chhouk village, Teuk Thla commune, Russei Keo district, Phnom Penh city. The armed robbery was conducted in front of the victim’s house when the victim was unlocking the gate to his house. Yon Touch, the 33-year-old male motorcycle owner, is a teacher. Local newspapers reported that the AK-47 bandits travel on a red C-100 motorcycle, and most of their attacks are conducted in Russei Keo Tuol Kok districts. The police could not arrest them, no matter how hard it tries.