Our Desk | Driving license recognition threats come from Guangdong

Julie Zhu

The government recently proposed introducing mutual driving license recognition between mainland China and Macau.

The proposal stirred up a lot of controversy among the local community, mainly because of the possibility of more mainland tourists choosing to drive in Macau. In addition, in light of mainlanders’ driving habits, Macau would have even more traffic problems.

Several government officials have made it clear that they have no issues with the aforementioned anticipated problems. The government’s main concerns are towards non-local workers who work as drivers in Macau because they might decide to work beyond what they are allowed to.

But do mainlanders really want to drive in Macau when they pay a visit to the city?

I, personally, do not think mainland tourists will want to drive in Macau. Macau and Hong Kong have a reputation among mainlanders for being massively populated places, and indeed they both are two of the most populated places in the world.

Being aware of this fact, would the reader even want to drive in Macau if he or she were a tourist? I suppose not. I tend to believe that even the most ignorant person would think to do some basic research about the transportation network of the place they intend to visit.

Nevertheless, Macau and Hong Kong are also well-known for their expensive lifestyle, their expensive housing markets, expensive food prices, and also expensive taxi services.

I think it sensible that someone should first, before coming to Macau, do a little research on the costs of each of the different kinds of transportation in Macau. Regardless, one would easily have already come across enough negative online comments about Macau’s taxi services through traveling sites. It would be fairly easy for tourists to find out that the only cheap transportation method in Macau lies in either walking or taking a bus.

Moreover, how much would it cost for a tourist to rent a car in Macau?

After knowing that virtually everything is expensive in Macau, except buses, which are cheap, and casino shuttle buses, which are free, are tourists willing or, I dare to ask, able, to pay for a car rental?

Let us also not forget that the majority of mainland tourists spend a short time in Macau. If they spend three days in Hong Kong, they will spend two days in Macau, but if they decide to spend five days in Hong Kong, they will still spend only two days in Macau.

For all the above reasons, overall I do not think that there will be an increase in the number of tourists from the mainland driving cars in Macau.

Will more cars come to Macau though? The answer to this question depends on tourists from Guangdong province. It is the closest province to Macau, has a large population, and people there find it convenient to travel to Macau or Hong Kong to do some shopping.

As a result, there might be a surge of cars coming from Macau’s neighboring regions, specifically Zhuhai, Zhongshan, and other cities within Guangdong.

Even though not everybody owns a car, we are still talking about millions of drivers from these areas potentially driving over.

It’s important to note that in 2015, there were 28.74 million registered drivers in Guangdong, which tops the numbers across mainland China.

Hence, while I do not worry about tourists in general, regarding the flow of cars to Macau from China, I do, indeed, hold a conservative expectation regarding Guangdong drivers.

Traffic accidents account for about 90 percent of the total number of fatalities in Guangdong province (the highest in China).

On average, from 2013 to 2015, 695 people were banned from driving on a daily basis in Guangdong.