To anyone who says Hong Kong's drivers are not good, I can only say they are the most improved driving population on Earth.
When I arrived in the then British colony in 1974, the idea of personal cars had not caught on with the general populace. We had thousands of drivers in charge of trucks, buses and taxis, and many cheerfully admitted they had 'bought' their licences, sometimes for less than $1,000.
In a radio interview, the president of the Rolls-Royce owners club admitted he did not drive any of his half a dozen Rolls-Royces. He said he had once had a driving lesson but found the whole thing too difficult and did not try again. He preferred to enjoy his cars from the back seat.
In the late 1970s, taxi drivers were our best drivers, but even they would drive at 40km/h and honk the horn at every pedestrian in sight plus every other vehicle of any type on both sides of the street.
In those days, people drove as they wished, switching from lane to lane without thought, care, or a glance in the rear-view mirror.
Joining the fray in 1978 with a tiny Datsun, I quickly found Hong Kong was the world's greatest defensive driving school. To survive, I quickly adopted the attitude that every other driver on the road was a) a lunatic who had violently escaped from an asylum and b) had broken into a liquor store, stolen two bottles of whisky, consumed the contents of one and was consuming the other while driving.
