California and the West : Farm Labor Van Check Reveals Familiar Hazards : Migrants: Amid heightened concern in wake of crash in which 13 workers died, bills are introduced in Legislature to improve safety conditions.

The 1972 Chevy van had no seats.

Its 14 bedraggled passengers, bell pepper pickers from Mexico’s Guerrero state, sat jammed on the bare floor behind opaque, crudely painted windows. The van’s side door was broken, useless in case of an accident. One tire was so bald that its cords showed through the rubber.

The driver, Alejandro Para Tellez, 44, of Stockton, had been arrested three times on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, authorities said. He had no driver’s license. But he did have a cell phone, and when the California Highway Patrol nabbed him three miles east of Stockton on Tuesday afternoon and removed his densely packed human cargo, Tellez used the phone to call his brother for a ride home.

The two CHP officers who impounded the vehicle, citing Tellez for driving without a license and carrying an open container of beer, predicted that the same scene would be played out again and again here in the San Joaquin Valley, possibly with the same characters, until the state’s laws are toughened.

The bust on a two-lane farm road was a dramatic illustration that the problem of unsafe and overcrowded farm labor vans still plagues California highways, despite raised public awareness and law enforcement crackdowns after an Aug. 9 accident near Fresno that killed 13 migrant workers.

“These guys, the workers, they’re the victims,” said Officer Derrek Brackett. “Unfortunately for them, they haven’t had work since last Friday. They’re hungry. They’ve got no money. They’re going to take another ride wherever they can.”

The workers, including a handful of teenagers and a few men who appeared to be in their early 40s, listened carefully as the CHP officers warned them about riding in unsafe vehicles. Occasionally they asked questions, mostly about whether they were going to be arrested.

When told they were not in trouble, they relaxed and confided to the officers that they all came from the same city, Chilpancingo, in Guerrero, a south-central Mexican state. But they seemed to be most interested in getting back to work in the fields, where they said they can earn as much as $70 a day, minus the $3 the driver charged them for transportation.

In the wake of the Aug. 9 accident, two bills are under consideration in the California Legislature to strengthen the laws governing the transportation of contract farm laborers.

“There are drivers out there who are unsafe,” said Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes (D-Fresno), author of one of the bills. “They are putting people’s lives in danger.”

Reyes’ bill (AB 555) would set up a mandatory system for safety certification by the CHP.

Assemblyman Dean Florez (D-Shafter) is pushing legislation (AB 1165) to require any farm labor vehicle to be equipped with seat belts. “We need more enforcement out there,” Florez said.

With just six officers from Bakersfield to Sacramento County dedicated to cracking down on farm labor vehicle violations, Florez said, “it’s not enough. People feel they can drive and not get caught or pulled over.

“Our bill allocates an additional $1.75 million to the CHP, and the governor is committed to those dollars,” he said.

The money would be used, he said, to put 20 additional officers on the prowl for problems in the Central Valley, and more officers elsewhere.

Florez said his measure is “going to be able to get full-time officers focused on these vans before they get on the road. That’s the key thing. It is a problem. People aren’t used to the enforcement.”

As CHP Officer Gilbert Lopez inspected the Chevy van Tuesday, he said, “This was an accident waiting to happen.” He immediately noticed a defective turn signal and a nonfunctional horn.

Lopez spotted the van when he saw it veer across the center line of the highway outside Stockton, in a heavily agricultural area with fruit orchards and vast tomato fields.

When the CHP cruiser approached the vehicle, it appeared to contain only a driver and one passenger. Lopez confiscated the beer, attempted to open the broken side sliding door and finally opened the rear door.

The gaunt, dusty passengers, most wearing heavy, long-sleeved shirts, came out one by one until all 14 stood or squatted on the shoulder of the highway.

The passengers were taken to Stockton in a CHP van. The driver, Tellez, was not arrested but was left on the side of the road to wait for his brother.

Tellez accepted his citations matter-of-factly, although he protested to Lopez that the van he usually drives had broken down and was better than this one.

“He says he told the owner, who is a labor contractor, that he had a suspended license,” Lopez told a reporter. He said the owner told him to drive anyway because the people had to get to work.”

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Times staff writer Mark Gladstone contributed to this report.