We have noticed that there are quite a surprising number of traffic accidents every day in Hong Kong. Some people think that the safety of pedestrians is being neglected and some of them think the pedestrians are still safe walking on the streets. Let us discuss this issue.
Many people think that the pedestrians and drivers too often forget about one another. As we can see, most pedestrians do not look at the traffic lights and they just cross the road when they like to. But the moving cars cannot suddenly stop like human beings do. I think that the drivers will be too surprised to react immediately. Traffic accidents always happen in this way. People hence think that the government has not done enough to protect the pedestrians. They might think the policemen do not always patrol the roads. Their safety is neglected because the traffic flow of vehicles is not strictly controlled and the methods used now, e.g. traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, cannot really prevent accidents.
High population density and limited land are also the important factors which lead to traffic accidents. In places where lots of people visit, shop and socialize, there must be wider streets and roads. But now, in those places, streets are not wide enough and pedestrians sometimes need to walk on the roads. They cannot see what is behind them and equally the drivers do not expect them. Fatal traffic accidents almost always happen this way.
Though the government may not have done everything to prevent traffic accidents, it has already done much to address this problem.
In Hong Kong, we can now already see many subways and footbridges. I believe the government builds those to help pedestrians cross the roads safely. But do most, even all the people, cross the roads by those facilities? Can those facilities protect the pedestrians? I believe they can really help because no vehicles can pass through or run on them. If people cross the roads using those facilities, the number of traffic accidents can be reduced tremendously.
Apart from the subways and footbridges, which are not on the ground, there are safety islands to let people cross the roads in a safer way. Also, for education, the government has already prepared different kinds of VCDs and DVDs for people to learn about road safety. Moreover, the government has publicized road safety on TV. I think that if all people follow the instructions and cross the roads in a proper way, there will not be traffic accidents every day.
To conclude, the government and the citizens should cooperate with each other to turn Hong Kong into a city with the least number of accidents. The government still has many things to improve further. But the pedestrians need to obey the traffic rules. I think the government has done enough to prevent traffic accidents, but it can set more measures to encourage people to follow them. Also, the population density should be carefully monitored and our land should be planned well.