AS a daily commuter aboard Hong Kong Ferry (HKF) between Lantau and Central, I feel the time has come for HKF to get their act together.
As anyone who has used the ferries will know, at the start of each voyage, an announcement is made over the loud speaker (and I do mean loud), stating that smoking, gambling, noise nuisance, etc., is prohibited under the HKF rules.
On numerous occasions I, and my fellow travellers have witnessed groups of people gambling aboard, more often than not with a member of the ferry staff watching the proceedings. The card players involved spend the entire journey shouting and swearing, occupying most of the seating and generally being disruptive.
Holiday season is even worse when the quiet island is invaded by thousands of screaming adolescents, laden with portable stereos, huge back packs and bad attitudes, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to annoy other passengers. The ferry staff at no time take any steps to control this madness, leaving it up to the regular travellers to try and quieten down this rabble. This invariably leads to very heated discussions, and on occasions, to outright violence.
I have often approached the ''customer service department'' of HKF in an attempt to get something done about the attitude of the staff, but to no avail, even after I informed them of which ferry times these events most commonly take place.
There are now ''random'' checks for smoking aboard the ferries, which are carried out by HKF-appointed inspectors. These inspectors, however, seem to have no interest in any other offence, even when informed by us that gambling, etc., is going on. The reason for this, apparently, is that no money is evident on the table, however, if they waited till journey's end, they would be able to witness, like the rest of us, the money changing hands.
