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Following is a transcript of the stand-up session by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao, on the release of the Expert Panel Report on Enhancement of Highway Safety this afternoon (December 5):

Reporter: ...Could you explain what would be done along the 39 spots identified by the panel to have similar characteristics as the Tuen Mun incident site...?

Dr Liao: Each of these spots would have its special characteristics and the Expert Panel have already identified them to be hot spots so we would have to take a closer look at them to see whether we need extra signs, whether we need to have stronger fences at those stretches of the road. But we can't use just one method, we want to make sure that the method we use would be appropriate. And that's why we need some time to sort it out.

Reporter: ... What can be done to prevent happening of similar incident ...?

Dr Liao: Well as I've said just now. For accident prevention, we wish we could do it 100%. But actually, you can only do as much as you can. There is always room for improvement and it comes with experience. So that's what we are doing now - we learned from this experience and we are prepared to improve road safety to the extent that we would reduce it to the lowest level.

Reporter: When and how .....will we hear the good news ...?

Dr Liao: I think the good news would be when the overall accident rate is reduced, then we would have achieved what we wanted to.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript)

Ends/Friday, December 5, 2003

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