Thursday, July 23, 2009

Hitchin' a ride

In Kansas, and I'm pretty sure in every other state, riding in the back of a truck is illegal. I learned this very early on because I was a dare devil child that was always begging to ride in a truck bed. The answer was always no, followed by all of the ways I could die if the truck got into an accident.

Pish posh. My seven-year-old self was invincible.

I should have came to Singapore back then.

Not only is it A-Ok to do this here, the government even regulates it (just as they with do other usually illegal activities such as prostitution, but I won't get into that.)

Many many foreign workers travel to work everyday by this method of transport. You'll see them riding in big shipping trucks, small pickups and even dump trucks.

All of those vehicles have these stickers on the back. The round sticker on the right means that this truck is allowed to carry 13 people in the truck bed. The round sticker on the left means that this particular vehicle is not allowed to travel at speeds exceeding 60km/hr. (That's 37 mph.)

The vehicles that carry passengers this way usually (I think always) have a speed limitation posted on them. I guess they consider that since the vehicle is moving that slow, no one will get seriously injured.

There are other reasons I think this is allowed, but I'm not going to get into that while I live in a country that canes people and throws bloggers in jail.

Nope. I'm not gonna say it.

3 comments:

Cori said...

I think the parents must have loved you more because I have ridden in the back of trucks all over KCK, and once with Theresa's family, all the way to Lake Perry. But, we also didn't wear seatbelts until I was a teenager, so maybe we were immortal back in the '70s and early '80s.

My Three Sons said...

We used to ride in the back of trucks with our friends and if anyone saw a police car we would all duck down.

Very interesting. I could see some construction companies out here wanting to have a law to carry 13 in the back of their trucks! LOL

Brad Farless said...

What's better is when you see a truck like the one in the picture, but full to the top of the side rails with two foreign workers clinging desperately to the stuff piled inside, while the vehicle travels down the highway at speeds in excess of the stated limit. Ya, it was in the paper here once. One of the few things I've seen in the paper that was even worth being in a newspaper.

As for caning and jail, there's a reason I blog under a pseudonym.