Twenty garment workers were injured in Kampong Speu’s Baset district on Saturday when the truck they were travelling in veered off the road to avoid a motorbike and overturned in a rice paddy.

In what is the latest in a rash of similar accidents, 20 of the 30 garment workers were injured – eight of them seriously – when the vehicle overturned as it carried the workers home, according to a Ministry of Labour statement released yesterday.

“The truck avoided a motorbike and it collapsed into the rice field,” it reads, adding that the driver fled the scene on foot.

Three of the seriously injured were being treated at Phnom Penh’s Calmette Hospital while the remaining 17 were at a clinic in Kampong Speu. All their medical costs will be covered by the National Social Security Fund.

Noun Samol, an official at the Free Trade Union, said traffic accidents involving workers were increasingly common.

“Some workers live far away; that’s why they always take the truck to and from work. It is cheap,” she said. “Some drivers do not obey traffic [rules] and . . . speed.”