Remarks by STL on law on seat belts at press conference on Transport Strategy Blueprint
Following are the remarks by the Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Ms Mable Chan, on the law of seat belts at the press conference on Transport Strategy Blueprint today (February 6):
The Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Ms Mable Chan, Photo source: FB of Transport and Logistics Bureau
Reporter: By taking responsibility of the team, do you mean you are trying to apologise to the public on behalf of the team? Also, could you detail a bit in English—what do you mean by that you try to improve the communication between officials to further explain and better clarify the regulation to the public?
Secretary for Transport and Logistics: The objective of introducing the relevant subsidiary legislation on seat belt installation and wearing actually revolves our primary objective: to enhance passenger safety provision. We remain positive and we remain our view that we have to do everything at our best in order to enhance passenger safety in different aspects. At the present moment, we have received, collected and gathered different views, suggestions and concerns regarding the wearing of seat belts on buses, including franchised buses and non-franchised buses.
These views received so far can be classified into different areas. They are related to the design, the installation of seatbelts, the scope of applicability of seatbelt installation and wearing within a bus, as well as exemptions or the penalties. All these feedback or views will be classified and consolidated into various buckets.
At the same time, we are gearing up ourselves as soon as possible to consolidate these views, and to summarise them into different areas, so as to enable the Transport and Logistics Bureau to conduct a public consultation exercise, so that we can collect and gather more views in different aspects in a systematic way. We hope that, with public consultation and views collected, this will enable us to explore actively or examine different feasible options, including possible areas to further enhance the arrangement for installation and wearing of seatbelts by passengers on buses.
We also attach importance to the internal verification, monitoring and double-checking system safeguard arrangement. My team and I, of course, consider that we must be more careful and serious in examining and in taking forward important legislative exercises such as this seat belt legislation, so that we can make sure that, in future legislative exercises, we can be foolproof in our preparation and ensuring that the policy and legislative intent are fully reflected in the legislation, as well as to ensure that our explanation and various briefings made are consistent with the objective we would like to deliver. Thank you very much.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)
The safety belts on the buses, Photo by Bastille Post
