HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 1 June 1988
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take a long time because of the large number of applications to be processed and the significant staff requirement involved but we are considering this matter in the longer term.
DR. LAM (in Cantonese): Could the Administration inform this Council whether young drivers are more prone to traffic accidents than those who are older. If this is the case, would the Government consider education programmes so as to give young drivers more information on road safety?
SECRETARY FOR TRANSPORT (in Cantonese): Sir, according to past statistics, offenders are normally young and middle-aged people and therefore, in our road safety campaigns, we do target our publicity towards this particular group. At the same time, we study the way they drive and try to improve the situation.
MR. LIU (in Cantonese): Sir, accidents involving light goods vehicles are usually caused by poor skills or carelessness of the drivers. Could the Administration inform this Council whether it will raise the standard for driving tests so that the situation can be improved?
SECRETARY FOR TRANSPORT (in Cantonese): Sir, we have looked into this and, in fact, in our road safety campaigns, we have considered whether we need to educate people with less experience so that their skill can be improved. At present, we do not have plans to raise the standard. However, if the situation deteriorates, we will definitely consider how the standard can be raised in order to make the tests more effective.
MR. JACKIE CHAN (in Cantonese): Sir, the Secretary said that now under the existing regulations people holding private car driving licences can also drive light goods vehicles. Driving a private car is, in fact, very different from a light goods vehicle; and the differences are similar to those between container trucks and goods vehicles. Therefore, drivers of goods vehicles cannot automatically be allowed to drive container trucks and they will have to pass another test to qualify for driving container trucks. Why is it then that holders of private car driving licences can automatically be permitted to drive light goods vehicles?
Would the Secretary consider improving the situation so that other motorists and pedestrians will be protected? At the same time, we will also be able to reduce public expenditure because every accident involves huge public funds.
SECRETARY FOR TRANSPORT (in Cantonese): Sir, the Transport Advisory Com- mittee has, in fact, looked into this. There are about 80 000 light goods vehicles now, and we cannot overnight treat the drivers as a separate category or require them to undergo a separate test. But I can assure you that we will definitely look into this and if the skills for driving light goods vehicles are different from those for driving private cars, we will definitely consider separate tests.