Education
The Council has an increasingly important role to educate the public on road safety. It performs this duty by identifying focal points, initiating curriculum-based programmes and course tools and co-ordinating the work of other groups interested in, or responsible for, road safety.
This multi-agency approach is particularly effective in wide-ranging community education initiatives across all age groups. The concerted efforts of district councils, schools, community centres and non-governmental organisations produce a variety of road safety education. Lectures and seminars are given by the Police to various groups and organisations at venues including the Road Safety Bus, Road Safety Towns, schools, centres for the elderly and other community venues. The messages delivered are tailored to specific groups and audiences. For example, road safety educational programmes designed for new immigrants to Hong Kong help these newcomers better understand local regulations and requirements.
In addition, Road Safety Bulletins prepared by the Transport Department (TD) are also regularly distributed to various stakeholders to enhance understanding of traffic regulations and of the importance of obeying traffic rules; to disseminate road safety messages; and to enhance the road safety awareness of all road users.
The Road Safety Towns transform road safety education into a fun experience for children and other young people, in a pleasant and comfortable environment. Managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the towns attracted more than 43,800 visitors of all ages in 2011, an increase of 18.4% as compared with 2010. The towns are a favourite destination of kindergartens and primary schools, as well as clubs, social service groups and elderly service organisations. Open days with interactive games and performances are regularly held to promote road safety themes.
| Hong Kong’s four Road Safety Towns are: | |
| 1 | Pak Fuk Road Safety Town Pak Fuk Road, North Point Enquiries: 2565 5716 |
| 2 | Sau Mau Ping Road Safety Town 56 Sau Ming Road, Sau Mau Ping Enquiries: 2379 1194 |
| 3 | Sha Tin Road Safety Park 1 Kong Pui Street, Sha Tin Enquiries: 2637 6303 |
| 4 | Tuen Mun Road Safety Town Wu Shan Recreation Playground, Tuen Mun Enquiries: 2463 7597 |
For many years, the Road Safety Bus has delivered road safety messages to students at schools, residents at housing estates and children at youth centres. The Road Safety Bus underwent a revamp project in 2010 and was decked out in a fresh livery, depicting the road environment and some of the most common crossing facilities found in Hong Kong. The interior of the bus is now better utilised, with more space for road safety education. Other new features of the bus include a rolling poster light box, driving simulator, pedestrian lights simulator with control box and buzzer, and advanced audio-visual equipment with touch-screen display. With its vibrant colours, simulated road environment and innovative computer games, it recorded more than 60,000 visitors in 2011, underscoring the valuable role it plays in road safety education. In addition, to raise road safety awareness and to develop good practices, we continue to reach out to our young people through interactive educational activities.
A cornerstone of our educational work is to instil safety awareness and proper attitudes towards road use in students through school education. Schools are encouraged to adopt a holistic approach comprising knowledge, skills and attitude to enhance safety awareness and sensible road use among students. In the school curriculum recommended by the Curriculum Development Council, one of the learning objectives for young children in pre-school education is to know how to protect themselves from early childhood through acquiring basic health and safety awareness. Elements of road safety, in particular, such as understanding safety regulations, cycling safety, proper use of public transport and common causes of traffic accidents are covered in various Key Learning Areas and subjects. Examples are General Studies at the primary level and the two Key Learning Areas of Personal, Social and Humanities Education and Physical Education at the secondary level.
To support the promotion of road safety education in schools, the Education Bureau provides learning and teaching materials, including educational television programmes and teaching plans for teachers’ reference and adoption. In addition, life-wide learning activities are organised to provide authentic learning contexts for students to develop a broader sense of road safety. Positive values such as responsibility, respect and care for others, which the school curriculum aims to nurture in students, are indispensable in building a solid foundation for them as responsible road users.
We attach great importance to cycling safety. In recent years, the Road Safety Council, the Police and TD have been promoting cycling safety through various forms of publicity and educational activities. In view of the increasing popularity of cycling in Hong Kong, we will increase our efforts in this area. Major undertakings are as follows:
Safe driving is one of the main themes in our road safety campaign in Hong Kong. An annual Safe Driving and Health Campaign was launched in 2011 to enhance awareness of safe driving and health among commercial vehicle drivers. The ‘Driver Improvement Scheme’, introduced by TD in 2002, continues to promote a culture of road safety by providing driving improvement courses for drivers who wish to voluntarily improve their driving behaviour, as well as for those who have accumulated 10 or more driving-offence points (DOPs) in respect of offences committed during a two-year period or those otherwise ordered to attend by a court due to conviction of a serious traffic offence.
Once all sessions and assignments are successfully completed, drivers receive a certificate and, when relevant, have their DOP total reduced by three. Since the implementation of the Driving Improvement Course in September 2002 and up to December 2011, nearly 53,900 drivers have attended the course. Encouragingly, 80% of the participants did not incur any new DOPs within six months of completing the course. The Road Traffic (Amendment) Ordinance 2011 introduced new offences which include ‘driving motor vehicle without proper control under influence of specified illicit drug’, ‘driving motor vehicle with any concentration of specified illicit drug’, ‘driving motor vehicle without proper control under influence of drug other than specified illicit drug’, ‘failure to provide preliminary drug test’ and ‘failure to provide specimen of blood or urine’. One of the penalties for these new offences is to attend a Driving Improvement Course.
In Hong Kong, elderly pedestrians remain vulnerable to road accidents. The Council continues to focus many of its seminars, campaigns, bus parades, road safety messages and publicity and educational programmes on this demographic group, emphasising proper road use and crossing. In particular, there were continued broadcast of API in television to remind the elderly to ‘Love Yourself, Love Your Family, Be a Smart Pedestrian’. The Council also worked closely with District Councils to conduct education in areas with relatively more traffic accidents involving elderly pedestrians to remind the elderly to use proper road crossing facilities. Also, the Council’s Elderly Pedestrian Safety Photo Competition was launched to raise public awareness of the safety of elderly pedestrians. The Council hoped the competition would help the general public to realise and care for the importance of road safety of the elderly. A radio API, reminding pedestrians of the importance of crossing roads properly, was produced and broadcast from February 2011.
For further information, please visit:
http://www.roadsafety.gov.hk/eng/tips/tips_drivers.html
