A 43-year-old tipper truck driver was trapped in his vehicle after it crashed into a tree on the East Coast Parkway (ECP) early on Friday morning in Singapore. Reports said that the man was taken conscious to Changi General Hospital after being rescued.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force said that it was informed about the accident along the ECP towards Changi Airport near the Tanjong Katong exit at around 6 am.
The driver, who was trapped in his seat, was rescued by the SCDF's Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (Dart) using hydraulic tools.
The accident caused traffic congestion on the expressway and the motorists were advised by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to avoid the fourth lane of the affected stretch of the expressway through a Twitter post.
Later, LTA advised motorists to avoid the second and third lanes as well. However, the congestion was clear at around 10 am. The police investigations are still going on.
Last month, an 18-year-old driver, who was trapped in a Redmart lorry after colliding with a car at a junction in Ang Mo Kio, was rescued by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).
A recent report said that the overall road safety situation in Singapore had improved in the first half of 2017. There was a considerable decrease in the number of fatal traffic accidents and fatalities, since 2012 when the country started a Safe Ride campaign.
In the first half of 2017, the number of traffic fatalities decreased by 7.6 percent to 61, from 66 in the same period of 2016, said the report. Even the number of fatal accidents during the first half of 2017 decreased by 9.1 percent to 60, from 66 in the same period in 2016.
The number of accidents resulting in injuries decreased by about 5.3 percent to 3,820 in the first half of 2017, from 4,034 in the same period in 2016, said the report. However, there were quite a number of reported accident deaths in January 2018.
