A response from Hong Kong Police regarding traffic safety issue on Ma Wan

Dear Ma Wan blog readers - Some of you will have read my recent suggestion to the Hong Kong Transport Department requesting a pedestrian crossing or traffic lights between the Ma Wan village and the Primary School on Park Island to address the risk of speeding buses possibly hitting children crossing the road. That post is here:

http://parkislandhongkong.blogspot.com/2011/12/request-to-hong-kong-transport.html

I received a response from the Hong Kong Transport Department which I posted here:

http://parkislandhongkong.blogspot.com/2011/12/response-from-hong-kong-transport.html

I also received a response from a Paul Turner, a Senior Inspector of the Hong Kong Police, (which I have set out below). I feel Paul's response is a little more sensitive, better worded, and more proactive than the first response received from the Hong Kong Transport Department.

Paul - I appreciate your response and attention to the issues raised. I will leave it to anyone who wants to, to post a constructive comment on this issue here (or feel free to contact Paul directly) but in either case once again, Paul thanks for your input, your efforts on the issue, and for posting your views and actions taken here. 

(Response from Paul below):

Dear Sir,

My name is Paul Turner. I am a Senior Inspector with the Hong Kong Police Force currently attached to the Enforcement & Control Division of Traffic New Territories South. My unit is responsible for responding to traffic accidents and other traffic related incidents within the Ma Wan area.

I have noted the contents of this and your previous blog, as well as the response from the Transport Department.

Last week I made a preliminary visit to the location and my original reason for posting here was to clarify if your concerns were related exclusively to Pak Lam Road or if there were any safety issues related to the adjacent roads i.e. Pak Lai Road and Fong Yuen Road since both run in close proximity to the school. Judging from TD's response above, I take it that your main concern is still Pak Lam Road?

As you can probably imagine, whilst we were present we didn’t see any evidence of speeding the presence of a uniformed traffic police officer and particularly a group of them tends to have that effect on drivers. What I do intend to do however is carry out a series of speed enforcement operations near the school once it opens again after the New Year holidays. These operations will be very overt and whilst we will prosecute any drivers detected speeding, you have to understand that due to the layout of the road our presence is going to be noted very quickly. Word will no doubt get around that we are there and that we are carrying out enforcement action, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as the drivers realize that we have taken your complaint seriously. Your assistance in letting us know if these operations have any long-term deterrent effect would be useful.

I expect the situation to improve dramatically whilst we are present, but I am more interested to know what ensues once we leave. We are unfortunately limited because of the guidelines issued to us as to where and how we conduct these operations but we will nevertheless do our best!

Another avenue you haven’t mentioned and that we may consider pursuing is to contact the TMCA (Tsing Ma Control Area) Staff. Ma Wan falls within the Tsing Ma Control Area and the TMCA Staff are both authorized and qualified to carry out their own speed enforcement operations so if there is a problem with speeding vehicles TMCA could carry out parallel enforcement action together with us.

Ma Wan Island is a restricted area and a pay toll road, which does limit our access. Police visits are 'usually' restricted to ‘urgent need’ cases such as attending traffic accidents or special pre-planned operations. Should you feel additional patrols are necessary and/or beneficial it would be helpful if you could reflect this to your Resident's Committee and the TMCA Staff to see if either ad-hoc patrols could be facilitated or if they can contact the Police on your behalf to request that we be allowed to enter the Ma Wan area other than when 'on-call'.

I hope that we can be of some assistance and that we can work together to resolve this issue. If we are able to gain some documentary evidence of speeding it might help in coercing the Transport Department to take a second look at your proposals.

Should you wish to contact me my office number is 21067270. I am out of the office quite a lot, so should you have any difficulty finding me you may also contact my Admin Staff on 21067079 and they can arrange for me to call you back or let you know when I will be back in the office.

Thank you.

P.A. Turner

Senior Inspector,

Enforcement & Control,
Lantau Unit

Traffic New Territories South

Hong Kong Police.