Vandalism of Gobee.bike is shameful behaviour

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By Yoyo So, St Paul’s School (Lam Tin)
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By Yoyo So, St Paul’s School (Lam Tin) |
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Gobee’s shared bikes had a rough start i Hong Kong, much to our shame.

I support Hong Kong’s first bike-sharing service, Gobee.bike, which was launched in April. It has brought us many benefits. Some people at first complained about the start-up, as 1,000 bicycles were made available for hire on cycling tracks in the New Territories.

Gobee.bike’s problems included security issues with its app, which exposed users to hacking risks. I believe there is room for improvement, but I am ashamed about the way some Hongkongers responded to the service.

Many bikes were found damaged, while some were thrown into Shing Mun River. Some people defended these acts of vandalism, saying that they were sparked by customer dissatisfaction with the service. This kind of behaviour can destroy Hong Kong’s reputation as a very safe city.

I think we should first reflect on our own behaviour before accusing mainlanders of being uncivilised. Economic growth and political issues are not the only things that matter; we should not overlook civic education, which holds the key to our accomplishments.

Yoyo So, St Paul’s School (Lam Tin)

From the Editor

Thank you for your letter, Yoyo. The Gobee.bike troubles are very interesting. If I were Sherlock Holmes, my nose would be twitching about the number of damaged bikes and the manner in which they were damaged.

It seems strange that a group of people were so angry that all of them threw their bikes into the same river. It’s even stranger to think that these were unrelated people who, upon being upset by the bikes, chose to do the same thing to them.

It’s also strange that the damage caused to other bikes seemed to raise safety issues. I believe our police will be asking some very serious questions about who would do such a thing. It might seem like a minor thing, with just a few bikes damaged, but it is not, because there seems to be some sort of link between the acts of vandalism.

So you are quite right when you say that such a thing hurts our city. It may make people cautious about opening new businesses here if it does turn out that Gobee.bike was being bullied in some way.

Susan, Editor

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