Gerakan Youth Secretary General Dr. Dominic Lau Hoe Chai is strongly against a proposal by the Special Commission to Study the Transformation of the Civil Service to stipulate traffic offenders pay their summonses on the spot, he points out that the proposal is not feasible, it will only causing a lot of inconveniences to the people.

”The proposal will not bring efficacy, instead it will cause a lot of inconvenience to the people and enraging them, worse still it will aggravate corruption. At the same time, the people will have to bear all the inconveniences in daily living. For instance, if the car owner is left stranded on the highway with his car towed or clamped for being unable to pay the traffic summons on the spot, then what should the person do?” says Dr. Dominic Lau.

Dominic Lau points out that some traffic offences are contentious, if the proposal is adopted, the people will lose their chance to appeal. The Special Commission to Study the Transformation of the Civil Service cannot simply table such a proposal just to overcome the problem of unpaid summonses, it is utterly not feasible.

“The Special Commission to Study the Transformation of the Civil Service should instead study the reasons behind the unwillingness of the people to pay summonses, not the way by tabling proposal that is pedantic. Short of counters to pay summonses, public holidays are inconvenient to the people to pay their summonses, some of them even have to take leave to pay summonses, which is hugely inconvenient to them. Besides, people are taking advantage on the seasonal ‘summonses discount’ from time to time by the government and wait for discount period to pay their summonses, theses are all the factors leading to unpaid summonses,” says Dominic.

Dr. Dominic Lau Hoe Chai also reiterates that clamping the car for failing to pay summonses is unwise. The car is the vehicle to sustain income for some of them, if their car is clamped, it will definitely affect their daily income and make life difficult for them.

Dr. Dominic points out that the Special Commission to Study the Transformation of the Civil Service should seriously study the feasibility of the proposal, they are not supposed to implement the proposal temerariously simply just to overcome the problem of unpaid summonses, otherwise it will be evoke widespread discontent among the people.