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departments, the Road Safety Division began drafting a new highway code as well as producing more effective traffic-education teaching kits for schools, and formulating and implementing road safety campaigns to educate members of the public on the importance of road safety.
Tackling Congestion on the Roads
Private Car Restraint Measures
The 1975 White Paper on Transport predicted that with a continuing increase in the number of vehicles and the limitations of the road system, it would become necessary, as part of an attempt to relieve overall road congestion, to restrain the rate of growth of the total vehicle fleet. A major development in 1982 was the introduction in May of measures to restrain the rate of growth of private cars and motorcycles. These measures included doubling the rate of first registration tax, increasing broadly threefold the annual private vehicle licence fees, and substantially raising the duty on petrol. Disabled drivers are exempted from all measures other than the petrol increases. As a result of these restraints, the number of new private cars registered between May and December 1982 dropped by 66 per cent compared with the same period in 1981. It is hoped that these measures will keep the growth rate of private cars down from the level of 11 per cent in 1981 to the new policy target of no more than five per cent per annum – although they may need reinforcing later. The number of private cars registered at the end of 1982 was 214 849 compared with 211 556 at the end of 1981. For motorcycles the figures were 27 434 and 27 443 respectively. A reduced rate of growth in total fleet numbers resulted. At the end of the year, the total number of registered vehicles was 339 551, a slight increase of 9 242 vehicles, or three per cent, over the previous year. Detailed statistics are at Appendix 36.
Goods Vehicles
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Goods vehicle numbers continued to increase, from 64 214 in December 1981 to 67 606 at the end of 1982. The economic and transport operations of the industry are to be the subject of a detailed study to ensure, among other things, optimum and effective road use.
Shipping
Hong Kong is one of the major ports of the world in terms of the tonnage of shipping using its facilities, the volume of cargo handled and the passenger throughput, and has earned a world-wide reputation for the efficient way in which it satisfies the requirements of modern shipping. Victoria Harbour, lying between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, is regarded as one of the most perfect natural harbours in the world. It has an area of some 5 200 hectares, and varies in width from 1.6 to 9.6 kilometres.
The administration of the port is a responsibility of the Director of Marine. He is advised on this by the Port Committee and the Port Executive Committee through which the closest liaison with shipping and commercial interests is maintained to ensure that facilities and services are developed to meet the changing needs of Hong Kong and of the ships using the port. The Container Port Executive Committee has recently been established to advise the Director of Marine on matters relating to the container port at Kwai Chung and its future development.
The port of Hong Kong, which ranks amongst the top three container ports in the world, handled 1.69 million TEU's (20-foot equivalent units) in 1982. The Kwai Chung Container Port has six berths with more than 2 300 metres of quay backed by about 85 hectares of cargo