Buckle Up, Yet Most Bus Injuries Happen Without a Crash
Originally published in Chinese on 8 January 2026.
Hong Kong may soon have the world’s toughest bus seat belt law. In two weeks, passengers who sit on a public bus fitted with belts must wear them, or face a fine of up to HK$5,000 and three months in jail. The government held a press conference this morning (8 January) to answer public doubts, but several key questions remain unanswered.
The government says it studied overseas examples and that mandatory belts on buses are an international trend. A few months ago our researcher wrote that the foreign laws the government cited actually apply to long-distance coaches, which run at very different speeds and risk levels. Requiring belts on urban buses would make Hong Kong the first advanced place to do so [Note 1].
In interviews, our researcher explained why other places do not impose a blanket rule on both coaches and urban buses. Urban buses are already very safe given their size, speed and routes; belts add little, and cannot solve the problem of standing passengers, so those buses are simply exempted.
▍”A Few Seconds Can Cut Serious Injuries and Deaths.” But by How Much?
Belts are always safer, at least for seated passengers. The real questions are the cost of enforcement, the social friction it may cause, and how much benefit it brings. How many injuries can belts actually prevent? That has never been seriously discussed.
Using the Code on Access to Information, we obtained ten years of bus safety data from the Transport Department. On average, collisions caused 0.7 injuries per million vehicle-km, while non-collision incidents caused 1.71, or 71% of the total. In other words, over 70% of bus casualties come from incidents belts cannot prevent, such as losing balance inside the cabin or falling while boarding or alighting. The benefit of mandatory belts is therefore smaller than people imagine.
Looking at collisions alone, the very risk the amendment targets, buses are already fairly safe: 1.44 accidents and 0.7 casualties per million vehicle-km. That is far lower than trams, at 7.6 accidents and 2.3 casualties, which have no belt requirement.
There is a further risk. To avoid criminal liability, more passengers may choose to stand rather than take an empty seat, exposing themselves to the non-collision injuries that the law does not address. Collision casualties, already rare, may fall slightly, but the 70% share from non-collision incidents may rise. Overall bus casualty rates may not fall, and could even go up.
The benefit of mandatory belts is doubtful, and many questions remain: how to enforce the rule, how passengers will judge when to buckle or unbuckle, and whether services will be delayed. These may create more social conflict than the law is worth. With the law taking effect in two weeks, the government can only keep collecting accident data after implementation, review the results, and adjust the installation and wearing rules later.
The full interview and the data obtained from the Transport Department are in the comments / Story.
[Note 1] Liber Research Community. 5 November 2025. [Safety First?] Most overseas cities do not require belts on urban buses; is Hong Kong going it alone?
Sing Tao Daily. 6 January 2026. New seat belt law is here: school bus nannies caught between duty and compliance | Sing Tao Headline
Transport Department data: “Traffic accident statistics by vehicle class and accident type”
