Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, we, too, welcome the Bill and will seek to give it God speed through the House. However, there are a number of issues that I shall draw to the attention of the Minister to which we may return in Committee, with or without the support of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. The first concerns seat belts. The Bill makes the use of a mobile telephone an endorseable offence. I have concerned myself with seat belts—I declare an interest as a member of the Thames Valley Police Authority—and caused some work to be done on the issue. In the past three years, 40 per cent of people killed in Thames Valley were front seat passengers, and 54 per cent of rear seat passengers were not wearing seat belts. Making the wearing of seat belts an endorseable offence is an obvious safety measure that is available to the Government. A car occupant is 25 times more likely to be killed if he is not wearing a seat belt. Unrestrained drivers and passengers are also a danger to other occupants. The current fine, a fixed penalty notice of £30, is derisory. Research by Professor Frank McKenna of Reading University on Thames Valley’s speed awareness scheme, to which the Minister referred, has shown that the avoidance of penalty points is a major motivator. It revealed that 60 per cent of offenders went on a speed diversion course to avoid the fine and 85 per cent to avoid the points on their licences. Yet, although we have a scheme for seat belt diversion, only 10 per cent of people take it up. In fact, people are in contempt of the seat belt legislation and something needs to be done. I urge the Minister to include this   matter within the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord   Hanningfield, said, such Bills do not come along often. It will probably be the only one that we will have in this Parliament. It is also an anomaly that people of 14 and 15 who are in rear seats, but do not wear seat belts, must be taken to court if the law is to be enforced, but the court has no effective penalty against them. The driver should be responsible for all passengers under 16 and Section 28 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 could apply. So, I ask that seat belts are made an important part of the Government’s initiative. In Ireland, the wearing of seat belts is being made compulsory and it is ironic that we should follow that example. I have some awful photographs here of incidents where people wearing seat belts survived horrendous crashes, while those who were not wearing seat belts were killed in relatively minor crashes. I am sure that other noble Lords have received the same material as I have regarding my second point—that the conspicuousness of HGVs would be aided by the addition to the sides and edges of these vehicles of the retro-reflective material to which the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, referred in relation to jackets. This country is alone in Europe in not marking the sides and backs of vehicles, so that people driving clearly can see those in front of them. The next issue concerns the promotion of good driving. The Learning and Skills Council has a young drivers’ scheme for drivers of passenger-carrying vehicles, under which 16 year-olds can be taught properly to drive and taught other areas of customer care, including looking after the disabled. It would be possible under this legislation to give the scheme recognition as the proper route into the passenger-carrying vehicle industry—the bus and coach industry. It is important, because the number of people coming forward to drive buses is small. We are bringing in people from abroad to do the job, because people here do not want to do it, and it needs to be invested with more status. I commend that idea to the Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, referred to country roads, for which the Bill does nothing. Increasingly, county councils have made the speed on main roads 50 mph—I do not know whether that is the case in Essex, but in Oxfordshire, where I am a county councillor, many single carriageway main roads have a 50 mph limit. But it is an anomaly that if one turns into a country lane, which is often wide enough only for one vehicle, there is no speed limit and one may accelerate to 60 mph. More accidents take place in rural areas than on main roads—and the number is growing. There is a case both for a default limit of 30 mph through villages and, where a road has no central white line—where it is, effectively, a single carriageway—for a speed limit of 40   mph. When one turns off a road that has a 50 mph limit it makes no sense at all to be allowed to go faster on what is obviously a minor road. This is a serious problem. We have talked before about the problem of large vehicles using country roads. I suggest that the law could be amended so that if a large vehicle is on a country lane its driver should be required to produce to a police constable a waybill showing that he has to collect or deliver on that road. The nonsense of policemen following vehicles for miles to prove that they have had access—which is not followed because the police do not have time—should be replaced with a responsibility on the driver to prove to the police that he needs to have access. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, referred to drugs. They are a serious problem and the police are singularly ill equipped to deal with the increasing number of people who drive under the influence of drugs. Policemen are forced to rely on asking somebody who they suspect of being under the influence of drugs to touch the end of his nose or to put out his right arm before they can arrest him and take him to a police station where he can be tested for drugs. But there is no evidential test that can be applied at the roadside that shows a policeman that a driver has impaired ability and should not be driving. That is something that needs to be looked at. The introduction of an offence of causing injury by dangerous driving is something that ought to be considered. We have an offence of causing death by dangerous driving, but injuries can be grievous. I am not talking about someone who gets his arm bruised, but about people who are permanently injured as a result of an accident. That is something that could be included in any change in the law. We will join the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, in supporting the proposals of the British Red Cross and   we will bring forward a number of matters in Committee. However, I have sketched out some of the   matters to which we will give attention, and I particularly ask the Minister to give attention to the seatbelt issue. If the intention of the Government is to get injuries down and to get on track for the target that they hope to reach, this is one way in which we could see some improvement. Lastly, it is questionable whether picnic sites will be used as family picnic sites or whether they will become dumping grounds, places where lorries exchange loads and where all sorts of other unpleasant things happen. I hope that if picnic sites are introduced it will be done in a regulated way that ensures that they are proper rest sites. However, we will support the Bill and look forward to receiving it in Committee.