The government-plated garbage truck after a fatal collision killed an 85-year-old-man in Cheung Sha Wan this morning

A government garbage truck driver knocked over and killed an elderly man in Cheung Sha Wan this morning, the second garbage truck death in six days and coming a month after a dump truck driver struck an elderly lady just 350 metres away.

According to police, driver Mr Chung, 34, was driving a government-registered garbage truck north on Camp Street at 7:17am when he turned right into Fuk Wing Street. “The driver saw a black shadow at his right side and stopped immediately,” says a police spokeswoman. “But he found the injured person already lying in the road.”

The truck had struck Mr Law, 85 and knocked him unconscious. Ambulance crews rushed him to Caritas Medical Centre but he was declared dead at 7:50am.

Police say the government-plated truck was operated by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD).

FEHD has not responded to questions.

On Saturday, a government-contracted Baguio truck driver struck and killed a 93-year-old woman in Chai Wan.

And on 20 August, four blocks away from today’s fatal crash, a construction dump truck struck a 66-year-old woman who was said to be in critical condition. Her status is being kept from the public and media according to her family’s instructions, government officials say.

Police studied elderly pedestrian deaths in 2020 in light of an alarming rise in fatal incidents. On the sidelines of the press event to announce the research, police forensic scientists bemoaned the lack of safety equipment such a side-radar on large trucks, equipment now mandatory in European countries.

At the time, Chief Superintendent Andy Tay said that 80% of elderly pedestrian road deaths were caused by large vehicles.

“People of all different ages encounter traffic [incidents], but it’s the elderly who suffer the most,” he told Transit Jam in 2020.

Research published that year found Hong Kong urban planners had failed elderly pedestrians, with poor walking connections in districts frequented by older residents.