Selfish behavior

Today I witnessed the result of the ever so common selfish behavior of Hong Kong people. As you can see from the photo below:These vehicles in the picture was stuck in the round-about for half an hour, and they did not want to let other vehicles get in front of them. Unknowingly to these drivers, their behaviors resulted in a perpetual traffic jam, which I had a bird’s eye view of. This traffic jam did not free itself until the police showed up. Mind you, the police simply stopped their motorcycles at the side of the road without having to direct any traffic.Did the mere presence of authority reminded drivers of the appropriate courteous behavior toward other drivers?

Selfish behavior

Today I witnessed the result of the ever so common selfish behavior of Hong Kong people. As you can see from the photo below:These vehicles in the picture was stuck in the round-about for half an hour, and they did not want to let other vehicles get in front of them. Unknowingly to these drivers, their behaviors resulted in a perpetual traffic jam, which I had a bird’s eye view of. This traffic jam did not free itself until the police showed up. Mind you, the police simply stopped their motorcycles at the side of the road without having to direct any traffic.Did the mere presence of authority reminded drivers of the appropriate courteous behavior toward other drivers?

Bad Habits Hard to Break

In the past I had talked about habits of Hong Kong people rushing all the time. This is unlike the hurrying that Tokyonite do. In general, people in Tokyo are polite to each other even when they are in a hurry. Where as in Hong Kong people are not as courteous.

Hongkies have this urge to saviour every seconds in their life, even if those few seconds may actually safe their own lives. Case in point is the intersection of “Peking Road” and “Kowloon Park Drive” in Tsim Sa Tsui in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

As you can see from the pictures below:

Bus Traffic 1 Traffic 2 Traffic 3 Traffic 4 Traffic 5 Traffic 6

I simply stood there for just 3 minutes, there was over 30 people of all ages and nationalities who ignored the numerous posted warning signs and crossed Kowloon Park Drive illegally.

It is not that the Hong Kong government did not try to resolve this problem as you can see from the signs posted.

Sign 1 Sign 2 Sign 3 Sign 4

These signs are in 3 different languages including “symbols”, Chinese and English, so no one should be able to complain that they do not understand the signs.

People just do not want to waste the few minutes it takes to use the subway. While taking these pictures I saw large buses, taxis, tourist buses and fast moving mini-buses slam on their brakes to avoid the pedestrians crossing Kowloon Park Drive while the lights are green for the on coming traffic.

It is like wearing seat belts in cars, governments of all countries enforce seat belt laws just for the sake of the car occupants’ own safety, but many people still do not comply. In this case the signs and barriers are to protect the safety of pedestrians but people continue to endanger themselves. Only for the sake of saving a few minutes of their lives, but never considering that their lives are the thing they should be saving.

May be the government should invest more money on enforcing the regulations rather than the passive approach of putting up more and more signs, which really do not make the area look too good.