Letters | How to make red Hong Kong taxis offer safer rides
- Including several updates when the thousands of battered Hong Kong taxis are replaced could help to track them and prevent speeding
This also explains why our taxis are in such poor condition today. However, now is the ideal time for the Transport Department to ensure that these 10,000-plus new taxis are installed with the latest safety devices, such as a black box recording time, speed, distance, which lights are turned on, hours at the wheel, etc; speed limited to 110km/h; assisted braking to prevent speeding; automatic proximity braking; in-car cameras, recording externally and internally; speed alert device to warn the driver – linked to the Transport Department’s digital speed map; speed display units, so the passengers can see if the taxi driver is speeding; and airbags.
As a final touch, install modern voice-communication devices in all taxis, to remove the need for taxi drivers to install any mobile phone on the windscreen, an obvious distraction and in some cases blocking more than half of the driver’s forward vision. This is an opportunity not to be missed, now is the time to make our taxis safer.
Neil Dunn, Kowloon Tong