THERE have been calls for improved safety measures for Irish Army trucks following a multi-vehicle motorway pile-up in which 28 soldiers were injured.The Labor Party urged improved protections as soon as possible, and the rank and file soldiers' representative organization PDFORRA called for military trucks to be taken off the roads pending the installation of upgraded safety fittings.Sixteen of the 28 soldiers were released from hospital within hours of admission on Tuesday.The troops were traveling without seatbelts in a convoy of army carriers on the M50 near Dublin when three of the lorries collided with two cars.Thirty soldiers who were sitting on benches in the back of the vehicles were thrown about. One suffered a broken leg. Others received spinal and neck injuries.The injured were treated at five Dublin hospitals, including St. Bricin's Military Hospital.PDFORRA called for an immediate ban on troop transport in the canvas-roofed trucks until safety is improved.The organization's deputy general secretary Simon Devereux said, "They should not be traveling in vehicles like these if it has already been identified that they need roll bars and restraints."The bottom line is that we are now calling on military authorities to suspend the transport of troops in these vehicles until the proper safety equipment has been fitted."Banning the trucks is widely regarded as impractical as they are used for around 2,000 operations a year.PDFORRA previously urged the Health and Safety Authority to review the army trucks following a similar accident last June in Granard, Co. Longford, when 12 soldiers were injured.Money to upgrade and improve safety on the trucks has been made available, and the Defense Forces said it was in the early stages of securing roll-over protection systems including safety harnesses which will be fitted to more than 150 trucks.Defense Minister Willie O'Dea said the call to take the trucks off the roads pending improvements was "an operational matter." He added that military top-brass would have to "make the call on that."The Labor Party also expressed concern about safety on the trucks. The party's defense spokesman Brian O'Shea insisted that the pile-up underlined the need for improved protections as soon as possible.A spokesman for the Defense Forces refused to be drawn on the cause of the crash. "A Garda road traffic accident investigation will be assisted by military police. In addition, a Defense Forces health and safety investigation will take place into the cause of this accident," he said.The crash near junction five of the M50 at the Ballymun interchange caused massive travel chaos on the motorway for much of the day. The northbound carriageway was closed for several hours and tailbacks of several miles were reported along the motorway.About 75 soldiers had been traveling in a nine-lorry convoy on their way to a training exercise in the Cooley Mountains, Co. Louth.The drivers of the civilian vehicles were not injured.