Lee’s road safety insight can be taken forward
In response to a question from a reporter, Hong Kong chief executive hopeful John Lee Ka-chiu’s insight into road safety was spot on. In short, driver behaviour and knowing the rules of the road are paramount to road safety. Only when the Transport Department makes this a priority will the city ever achieve the goal of “zero accidents on the road”.
This will be an uphill battle, especially when the Transport Department does not acknowledge the 1.22 million damage-only accidents reported to the police since 2000. It excludes damage-only accidents from its monthly traffic and transport digests, and does not seem to consider this information in improving road safety.
On the Transport Department website, a damage-only traffic incident is not an accident – a traffic accident is defined as “an incident reported to the police, involving personal injury occurring on roads ... in which one or more vehicles are involved”.
However, failure to include over 1 million plus damage-only accidents reduces our ability to address risk factors of damage and injury on our roads. Franchised bus firms will not have such data when conducting their route risk assessments; road engineers, district councillors, insurance companies and other interested parties are being kept in the dark on the true extent of the risk and cost of using our roads.
Is it any wonder therefore that last year had the highest number of traffic accidents causing injuries – 17,831 – since 2000, which resulted in 21,751 people being injured and killed?
After the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic in 2003, the Hong Kong Jockey Club recommended to government the establishment of the Centre for Health Protection and donated HK$500 million towards it. The foresight of the Jockey Club ensured that the scientific knowledge required to fight disease was enhanced, building capacity for times such as now.
With the increasing number of traffic accidents, and the highest yearly number of road casualties, would the Jockey Club consider donating HK$500 million to establish a Centre for Road Protection, helping to take Mr Lee’s insight forward to make our roads safer?
Neil Dunn, Kowloon Tong