Tree of Strife

What is it with Hong Kong people and the environment. It was with great disappointment that I read the lead front page article, "Tree of Strife" in Tuesday June 15th's The Standard, my disappointment being with the accusatory style of reporting by The Standard. I feel sorry for the unfortunate cyclist and his wife and family, but the barely concealed tenor of the report was to try and blame someone for this accident. Am I not alone in thinking that this was indeed just an accident, and that those seeking someone to blame could better just accept that accidents can happen, so long as people have taken steps to prevent them. However, prevention must draw the line somewhere, and from the report it appears that this tree was inspected less than four weeks previous to the accident. Provided the inspection was not negligently conducted (which is the suggestion of the writer and some of the persons interviewed), what more could be done? Would the solution be to tear down all the trees that dare to present a remote possibility of falling branches anywhere near the densely packed 7 million citizens of our concrete jungle of a city? Shall we concrete over the whole city, put rubber bouncy pavements everywhere and remove any form of danger or mishap from our citizens? Or should we encourage our cycling citizens to wear helmets when riding their bikes, as whether or not the unfortunate victim was wearing one is major fact that is glaringly missing from the report. Given the horrific head injuries suffered by the victim, it does not require a large leap of intuition to come to the conclusion that the severity of this accident could have been mitigated by the unfortunate victim himself, not by tearing all our trees down. Please can we have some sensible and balanced reporting and some acceptance by people that their lives are in their own hands and not there to have every single possible eventuality taken care off by the state? Shit happens, that is life and nature, this should not be front page news for anyone. Grrr!