Bamster Briefing: Hong Kong
Hong Kong! World's largest per capita
consumer of shade cloth. Filled with people formerly called Patrick.
It was easy sitting in an Irish Pub, not too far from Kennedy Town, surrounded by the billowing
green to think that I too might cease to call myself Patrick and stay a while.
Or perhaps I might stay over the water with my Celtic cousins in McAu.
Ah dreams! But I only had a week and there is more to Hong
Kong than Shamrocks and Thistles. Lots more. Lots of roads. Lots
of vehicles.
What better way to see these roads than to have a driving
lesson? Who better to teach me than Raymond Fung of City
Driving School, Hong Kong? Raymond has years of
experience teaching Hong Kong bus drivers, so I felt in
safe hands.
I also spent a lot of time in taxis, a lot of time in
mini-buses and a lot of time on the top deck of double decker buses and trams.
Driving Hong Kong Island
is not for the fainthearted. The city streets are packed and a lot of the roads
(excluding the excellent freeway system) are very narrow. The driving is
aggressive, but generally of high quality (maybe because the vast majority of
vehicles are driven by professional drivers). Although aggressive in driving,
most Hong Kong drivers are not easily fazed. They seem
to accept that the roads are the way they are so why stress? Many Sydney
drivers could learn from this.
The biggest weakness of Hong Kong drivers is their unwillingness to use their indicators. This combined with the
same suicidal pedestrian behaviour also seen in Sydney must lead to excessive casualties.
Bamster gives the drivers of Hong Kong Island an S+.
We suggest that you do not drive in Hong Kong unless you have plenty of experience and confidence. And why bother? Hong Kong's
public transport is excellent and cheap. Sydney could learn from that too (but it would help if we could pack another couple of
million people into about half the space).
Like all civilized countries (India, Japan, Australia, etc) the people of Hong Kong and Macau drive on the left hand side of the road. Indeed,
the next major leap forward in China (after the 3 Gorges hydro scheme and putting a man in orbit) will be the conversion of the entire transport
system to comply with Hong Kong road rules.
Click Here for Hong Kong and NSW Road Fatality Stats 2002
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