Kwai Tsing cops gave 817 parking tickets and towed five cars ahead of the new school year
Traffic police in Kwai Tsing gave 817 tickets and towed five private cars in a massive sting operation against illegal parking ahead of the new school year.
Kwai Tsing has around 135 schools and kindergartens and is plagued with heavy traffic and road obstructions during school drop-off and pick-up.
Officers targeted the school areas in the few days leading up to the new school term, with traffic wardens running a rare “zero tolerance” approach.
Aside from the 817 parking tickets and five towed vehicles, officers issued 12 summonses for driving offences.
“Police appeal to motorists to abide by traffic rules and never park their vehicles illegally just for the sake of convenience,” police said in a statement.
But policing of school traffic is hit-and-miss across Hong Kong. While studies estimate no more than 10% of students travel by car at even the richer private schools, those minority commuters cause a disproportionate traffic impact.
For example, Kowloon City police ran a major traffic safety publicity campaign in their famous school district Kowloon Tong this morning, the first day back for the public schools in the area; but pedestrian parents and domestic helpers complained the worst road safety problems were not at drop-off time.
A parent in a left-hand drive mainland car blocks the entire pavement on fast-moving Waterloo Road to pick up a child from St Johannes College Catholic School. Only the most priviledged mainland officials and businessfolk are granted access to Hong Kong with left-hand-drive cars
Around Kowloon Tong, with probably the densest school population in Hong Kong, parents and drivers picking up children at around 3pm are known to double- and triple-park, blocking roads while also blocking pavements, pedestrian crossing and bus stops, bringing local traffic roads and footpaths to a congested standstill.
Reacting to complaints and pedestrian collisions, police have had some success with YCIS Secondary School in the district, with a daily patrol moving on illegal parkers from Tim Fuk Road. At that stretch of road, drivers previously parked anywhere they could, including pavements, roundabouts, taxi stands or simply in the middle of the road. These issues have been largely resolved with the school itself offering a new pick-up arrangement inside the school and a police van daily flashing lights at those attempting to break the law.
But while traffic wardens sit in that air-conditioned police van waving at motorists, a few hundred yards away roads and pavements are blocked for several hours a day by errant drivers roaming freely without interference from authorities.
Pavements and pedestrian crossings are incessantly blocked around American International School at pick-up time.
Nearer to Waterloo Road, at American International School, drivers have the run of the land, with pavements around the school completely blocked and every pedestrian crossing or dropped kerb turned into a parking space. Staff at the school have repeatedly pledged to solve the issue of parents driving and parking on pavements and pedestrian crossings but the danger persists year-in, year-out.
At YCIS Primary School on Kent Road staff have been more proactive, arranging cones and chains to at least stop drivers parking on the pedestrian crossing (“it’s sad that we have to resort to that,” one YCIS staff member said), but these school wardens have little power against the deluge of drivers in Toyota Alphards, Mercedes G-Wagens and Bentley SUVs.
One senior cop told Transit Jam many of those “elite” students would be picked up by two vehicles: one for them and one for their bodyguards.