Shake-up of licensing regime needed for Hong Kong’s ageing taxi drivers
- The city’s cabbies have to show that they are fit to drive and no danger to themselves, passengers and public
The ageing of Hong Kong’s taxi drivers has to be seen as a worrying road safety statistic, without waiting for more accidents to happen. In March, 1,713 people aged 80 and above held taxi driving licences, an increase of about 500 over five years.
Nearly 30,000 aged 70 to 79 held licences. In 2020, more than half of the city’s 203,027 cabbies were over 60.
Those over 55 accounted for nearly twice as many of the 2,320 accidents involving cabbies that year than younger drivers.
There is no retirement age. To keep their licences, drivers over 70 must furnish a satisfactory medical report from a registered doctor every three years.
It covers safety factors including eyesight, mental state, skeletal and muscular system, balance and coordination and hearing. It would be very reassuring to have confidence that such a range of tests can be conducted thoroughly in one appointment with one practitioner, or that there is no doctor shopping.
Livelihoods depend on passing these tests. Taxi driving has become accepted as an aged occupation, without any age-related dispensation for hours worked.
Critics maintain the current physical fitness requirements have failed in their paramount objective of ensuring that older drivers are fit for the road.
It takes a shock to make a difference. One came in January when an 87-year-old cabby was involved in three accidents in nine days.
In March, an 85-year-old drove through a crossing point on a busy street, injuring three pedestrians, two critically.
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As a result of these and hundreds of other incidents involving older cabbies each year, the authorities are believed to be considering stricter health checks, such as annually after turning 65, instead of three-yearly after 70. A consultation will be held on the recommendations of a panel set up last year to review the rules.
The taxi industry has been quick to flag opposition to what it sees as a flawed solution. It claims the government should be looking instead at a manpower shortage created by the poaching of younger drivers by the ride-hailing service Uber.
Many would scoff at that and call on the industry to put its own house in order and be more competitive with Uber on three counts – retaining younger drivers, service and comfort. That makes more sense than demands to shut down an illegal service that remains in public demand.
That said, people are living longer and more productively. Society can ill-afford to waste their ability to contribute.
But ageing may still take its toll. A diagnosis of dementia at an advanced age can run most, if not all, of its debilitating course within the space of the three years that separates current taxi licence health checks.
Hong Kong, and the industry, badly needs a fitness-to-drive licensing regime that puts the safety of the public, drivers and passengers firmly front and centre.
