In October 2025, 31 passengers received fines for not wearing seat belts on a minibus in Hong Kong during an undercover police operation. - STAND.FOR.HK/INSTAGRAM
HONG KONG: In the latest embarrassing incident for the government, officials made an abrupt U-turn on a policy requiring all seated bus passengers to wear seat belts, barely a week after the law kicked in.
The seat belt rule – which took effect on Jan 25 – was halted on Jan 30, after days of heated public debate culminated in a former lawmaker’s discovery that the legal wording did not mandate donning seat belts on almost all existing buses on the road.
Officials have now promised to refine the law, which would have imposed maximum penalties of a HK$5,000 (US$640) fine and three months’ jail.
Unsurprisingly, the U-turn has intensified an angry backlash against the regulation and sparked ridicule over the government “not properly doing its homework again” before rolling out a policy.
Local media have joined the fray, publishing scathing criticism by residents, columnists and analysts.
“It’s not even the first time something like this has happened,” Lo, a regular commuter, tells Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao in an Instagram video compilation capturing residents’ blistering comments as they reacted to the policy suspension.
She was referring to the government’s last-minute decision in 2024 to drop a plan to charge residents by the amount of trash they generate, after repeated delays, confusion and HK$74 million already sunk into producing special plastic bags for the levy.
“I won’t be surprised if they flip-flop again on future policies that may be every bit as poorly researched and ill-thought-out as these ones,” Lo adds.
Another resident, Hui, says: “The government means well, but it shouldn’t have put the focus all on how offenders will be penalised.”
He adds: “Can the authorities please consult the public before such roll-outs, then properly explain the policy reasoning, so that people will be better able to come around to the government’s point of view.”
In the South China Morning Post, the English-language daily’s columnist Alice Wu remarked: “Once again, despite good intentions, policymakers have failed to consider every eventuality and prepare adequately.”
She added: “The waste levy and seat belt rules are similar in one sense: The reasoning behind them is sound but their implementation has been nowhere near acceptable due to the government’s lack of foresight, insight and, as is apparent now, ability to learn from mistakes.”
The new law was the result of recommendations made by an independent review committee after a fatal bus crash in Tai Po in 2018. It suggested that mandating seat belts would be the most effective way to ensure widespread use and improve safety.
‘Nobody move!’
Hong Kong’s seat belt fiasco has all the elements of good comedy.
There is the residents’ relatable frustration over the policy’s impact on their daily lives, tension and a disconnect between the government’s goals and its people’s perspectives, a sense of deja vu, widespread confusion, a series of misunderstandings, and finally, a surprise plot twist.
The seat belt law first made the news in August 2025, when transport minister Mable Chan announced plans for new road safety rules.
The subsidiary legislation would, from Jan 25, require all newly registered buses to have seat belts installed and all seated passengers in those vehicles to wear them, she said.
But the policy did not spark public interest until October 2025, when dashcam footage of an undercover police operation on a minibus went viral online.
“Nobody move! It’s the police!” a plainclothes officer who had been posing as a passenger is seen saying as he rises from his seat, brandishes his credentials, and points out all those without seat belts secured.
That sting resulted in 31 passengers receiving fines. Even before the Jan 25 law kicked in, passengers on minibuses and cars were already required to don seat belts.
After the incident, the authorities reminded the public about the impending roll-out of the new policy that would broaden the rule to cover all buses.
“Starting from Jan 25, all public transport and commercial vehicles’ seated passengers must wear seat belts,” the government said in a press release on Jan 8.
Bus operators scrambled to install seat belts or fix faulty ones ahead of the roll-out. But passengers chafed at the new law immediately after it took effect.
They accused the government of trying to profit from the “overly harsh” penalties of the hefty HK$5,000 fine and threat of three months in jail, rather than genuinely caring about safety.
They argued over why standing passengers need not be similarly restricted when they face greater danger than seated passengers in the event of an accident.
They expressed unhappiness about the inconvenience of the seat belts, which they said were stiff, restrictive, uncomfortable, often dirty or faulty, and ill fitted for children.
For short-distance commuters, the seat belt rule was seen as a hassle as they had to grapple with the buckles while trying not to miss their stops.
In one TVB news clip that particularly amused netizens, a middle-aged man claims that having to insert the contraption into its clasp on his narrow bus seat puts him at risk of accidentally brushing the thigh of the woman passenger beside him.
Surprise plot twist
In the six days that the new policy was in effect, some defiant commuters went as far as to destroy seat belts on buses.
One commuter was trapped in his seat for 45 minutes as 20 firefighters and medics struggled to release him from a vandalised seat belt stuffed with aluminium foil.
Another was arrested for assaulting a wheelchair-using passenger who delayed the man’s journey with his refusal to fasten his seat belt.
Then, on Jan 29, former lawmaker and practising solicitor Doreen Kong dropped the bombshell.
According to the precise wording in the legal provision, she noted in a Facebook post, “passengers are liable to wear seat belts and are subject to penalties for non-compliance only when they are seated on a bus… registered on or after Jan 25, 2026”.
This means passengers on older buses – nearly all existing ones on the road – are not legally required to wear seat belts, she explained.
“I hope the government can clarify the regulation, to avoid the public mistakenly believing that the penalties for not wearing seat belts apply to all buses,” she added.
Following Kong’s revelation, the authorities swiftly suspended the new law.
Chan, the transport minister, on Jan 30 admitted “technical shortcomings” in the legislation, which she said would be amended to more adequately reflect the government’s intent to require all vehicular passengers to don seat belts, before being reintroduced.
On Feb 1, security minister Chris Tang vowed that the revised regulation, when ready, would be better implemented, communicated, and made “more convenient” for passengers.
Yet the damage may already be done.
“Such disruptive policies that have repeatedly been wrongly implemented have drawn widespread public discontent,” one netizen, Felando, wrote on veteran Hong Kong affairs analyst Chris Yeung’s Cantonese-language YouTube commentary on the seat belt saga.
“How can our officials simply shrug it off with an admission that the situation is not ideal,” he questioned.
Yeung had his own harsh words on the debacle.
“It’s simply an absurdity beyond description,” he said.
Absurdity does make for good drama. But even the finest comedy starts to feel stale when repeated once too often. - The Straits Times/ANN
