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Speed limits for roads in Hong Kong
Following is a question by the Hon Chan Wai-yip and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport, Mr Gordon Siu, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
There are many types of vehicles and in great numbers, running on the limited number of roads in the territory. Furthermore, the capacity of many roads, particularly expressways, is not fully utilised because of the imposition of speed limits on such roads. For example, private cars are subject to a speed limit of 70 kilometres per hour when running along Tuen Mun Highway, and this has resulted in private cars not being able to make effective use of Tuen Mun Highway. In this connection, will the Government inform this council whether:
(a)
(b)
it will follow the practice in other places and impose different speed limits on different types of vehicles using expressways; and
it will carry out a pilot scheme to assess if the measure mentioned in (a) above will result in an improvement to the utilisation of the territory's expressways?
Reply:
Mr President,
When setting speed limits for roads in Hong Kong, the Administration has regard primarily to safety and takes into consideration a number of factors including:
(a) the length of the route;
(b) the topography and geometric design of the route;
(c)
the road surface characteristics;
(d)
the accident history; and
(e)
the speed generally adopted by vehicles using the route.