I refer to the letters of Thomas Chow headlined, 'Belt up' and Sabrina Ho headlined, 'Unsafe', which appeared in the Sunday Morning Post, on November 19 and 26, respectively, concerning the wearing of rear seat belts in taxis.
It is always our intention to enhance road safety through the use of seat belts by car passengers and, over the last few years, we have been taking a step-by-step approach to impose legislative requirements on the fitting and wearing of seat belts for various types of vehicles and car passengers.
At present, drivers and passengers of private cars, as well as drivers and front-seat passengers of taxis, light buses and goods vehicles are required, under the law, to wear seat belts if available.
Fitting of seat belts is also compulsory for those seats in the respective vehicle classes registered and manufactured on or after a specified date.
The legislation is effective, as the total number of casualties of drivers and passengers has reduced significantly since the legislation was put in place.
Regarding the extension of rear seat-belt legislation to taxis, the related legislative amendments were endorsed by the Legislative Council in June and will come into effect on January 1, of next year. Under the new regulations, all taxis registered on or after January 1, 2001 will be required to have seat belts fitted in the rear and taxi passengers will be required, under the law, to wear seat belts if available. This will further enhance the safety of taxi passengers.