SINGAPORE – Two companies have been charged with failing to ensure that their vehicles were fitted with approved speed limiters.
Speed limiters cap a vehicle’s top speed at 60kmh, reducing the risk of speeding-related accidents involving heavy vehicles.
Announced in 2023, the speed limiter regime requires all lorries with a maximum laden weight of between 3,501kg and 12,000kg to be fitted with a speed limiter that caps their speed at 60kmh.
One of the firms, gas and engineering company Linde Gas Singapore, was fined $500 after it was convicted of the offence on March 18.
According to court documents, one of the company’s heavy vehicles was travelling along Jurong Island Highway without the device shortly before 10am on Jan 16.
Its representative told the court on March 18 that the company has since put in a speed limiter in the vehicle.
The other company, Or Kim Peow Contractors, is also accused of committing a similar offence on Jan 16.
One of its heavy vehicles was allegedly not fixed with an approved speed limiter while it was travelling along Sungei Kadut Drive at around 11am that day.
The company’s case will be mentioned again in court in April.
Or Kim Peow Contractors is a subsidiary of mainboard-listed infrastructure and civil engineering company OKP, and it has made the headlines in other unrelated cases.
On March 9, OKP announced that it had secured a contract with the Land Transport Authority valued at about $87.3 million for commuter infrastructure works along the Jurong Region Line.
Under the terms of the agreement, Or Kim Peow Contractors, will manage the design and construction of both high and standard covered linkways to provide sheltered connectivity for pedestrians and commuters.
Separately in March 2023, The Straits Times reported that consultancy firm CPG Consultants had been ordered to pay Or Kim Peow Contractors more than $43 million over the collapse of part of the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) in 2017.
Or Kim Peow had engaged CPG to provide design services for the project.
This comes after Or Kim Peow initiated arbitration proceedings against CPG in December 2021 in relation to the incident.
One worker was killed and 10 others were injured after a portion of the viaduct from Tampines Expressway (TPE) to the PIE and Upper Changi Road East collapsed in the early hours of July 14, 2017.
In May 2021, Or Kim Peow was fined $1 million for failing to take reasonable measures to ensure the safety of its workers.