Opinion | Hong Kong should outsource control of illegal car parking

There is a growing sense of exasperation in some quarters at the nonchalant approach towards illegal car parking in Hong Kong. It goes on everywhere and the Hong Kong police force, which is responsible for ensuring that it doesn't happen, exercise an extremely light touch in this regard - to put it mildly.

In Central, drop-off points are blocked by illegally vehicles so people are dropped off in the main thoroughfare which blocks traffic and thus slows the flow of traffic. If the police aren't able or unwilling to ticket offenders, the answer surely, as one reader has suggested, is to outsource this task to a private company. This happens in Britain, for example, and traffic wardens are disliked for their zealousness.

The Guardian newspaper once ran an interview with a traffic warden who worked for a private company. He showed a refreshing enthusiasm for rigorously enforcing the laws, impervious to personal sentiment. The writer observes "his implacability is both chilling and admirable". From the motorist's perspective, he was "penalising incautious manoeuvres without mercy or humanity", while from his own perspective, "he is paid to be an impartial upholder of rules". He adds: "It's my responsibility to make sure the traffic is flowing and that drivers are doing the right thing … You want to make sure everything is perfect - not be distracted by sympathy." We could do with some of that spirit here in Hong Kong.

A special Happy Birthday to retired BBC correspondent Anthony Lawrence. His birthday yesterday was no ordinary one. Lawrence, who came to Hong Kong in 1958 and retired in 1973, celebrated his 100th birthday appropriately in the Foreign Correspondents' Club. Since retiring, Lawrence has worked as a volunteer for the International Social Service Hong Kong Branch for almost 40 years. So the ISSHK laid on a party for him and it attracted quite a crowd, which included Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, who made a speech, ISSHK chief executive Stephen Ho, British Consul-General Andrew Seaton, BBC world news editor John Williams and former legislative councillor and founder of the Democratic Party Martin Lee Chu-ming.

Cheung was fulsome in his praise for Lawrence. He congratulated him on his recently announced Bronze Bauhinia Star and went on to say: "His work as a journalist and involvement with the FCC [of which he was a founding member] has contributed to Hong Kong's development as a media hub in Asia and as a bastion of the free flow of news and information." Long may that continue, say we.