At the entrance to the Aberdeen Tunnel there is a digital sign that displays the number of traffic casualties last year and the number of casualties to date this year. I have often wondered about this sign. It currently says that there were over 20,000 in 2013 and there are over 2,000 so far this year. To me a traffic casualty implies that someone was killed in a traffic accident. Could there really have been over 20,000 deaths due to traffic accidents in Hong Kong last year? This didn't seem possible. I do spend the majority of my time on the south side of the island which definitely doesn't have as much traffic, but I'm downtown a fair amount. I've also been over in Kowloon a number of times. In all of my travels I have only seen a handful of accidents, none of which looked too serious. Then last week I was riding the school bus home from one of PJ's basketball games when the driver stopped before going over the dam. At first I thought he saw another big truck or bus coming from the opposite direction (the bridge doesn't accommodate two large vehicles driving in opposite directions). Then cars behind us began passing us. Then I saw the reason he stopped. An ambulance was coming from behind. Now I was appalled. We stopped for the ambulance, but all of the cars that passed us just ignored it. Could this be the reason for the large number of casualties? I decided it was time to research.
Apparently a traffic casualty is any accident. In 2013 there were only just over 100 fatalities in all of Hong Kong. There were about 2,500 serious accidents and the rest were minor. So, no need for me to be concerned about the sign. Thank goodness!
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