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Following is a question by the Hon Ir Dr Hon Raymond Ho and a written reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao, at the Legislative Council meeting today (June 14):
Question:
It has been reported that in a head-on collision between a private car and a taxi earlier on, while the driver and passenger of the private car were protected by the automatically inflated safety airbags and sustained slight injuries only, the taxi driver and passenger died in the accident because airbags were not installed in the taxi. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether it has considered legislating to require that safety airbags be installed in all taxis in Hong Kong; if it has, whether the authorities will consider providing subsidy to help alleviate the financial burden of installing airbags on taxi owners; and
(b) of the ratio and respective numbers of taxis with and without safety airbags, and whether the number of taxis with safety airbags has been increasing over the past three years?
Reply:
Madam President,
Currently, there is no legislation requiring safety airbags to be installed in vehicles in Hong Kong. We understand that it is not a statutory requirement in most overseas countries, including the European Union and Japan, which are the major sources of our vehicles, to install safety airbags in vehicles. They have also not set any standards for safety airbags. We will continue to keep in view overseas standards and latest developments of vehicle safety devices.
We do not have the statistics of taxis installed with safety airbags.
Ends/Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Issued at HKT 13:45
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