Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I too wish the Bill well. I congratulate the Government on introducing it so early in this Parliament. I declare an interest as a former president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. I suppose I am in a unique sandwich in that I am following one former president in the shape of the Minister and I am soon to be followed by the current president, my noble friend Lady Gibson of Market Rasen. It was unfortunate that the calling of a general election caused the original Bill to be lost. I hope that in one respect the Government have made good use of the time caused by that delay to reflect on what was an original proposal, much trailed in the media, to reduce the number of penalty points for speeding in 30 mph areas. A wealth of evidence, much from government agencies, shows that a person struck by a car travelling at 40 mph is twice as likely to be killed as one hit by a car travelling at 30 mph. The risk to car occupants also rises exponentially at speeds between 20 and 40 mph. Faced with that evidence, which is reinforced by some very hard hitting government advertising showing what happens when a car hits a child pedestrian at 35 mph, it would have been perverse of the Government to give the impression that exceeding the speed limits in the 30 to 40   mph areas was seen somehow as a less serious matter than it used to be. A great deal of work has been undertaken to convince drivers that speeding kills and causes more severe injuries. We know that 70 per cent of drivers have admitted to speeding. We have had a confession from the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, on that subject this afternoon. One particular study finds that drivers regard driving at 40 mph in a 30 mph zone more acceptable than dropping litter. That just will not do and I hope that the Minister will make it clear that whatever may happen with marginal reductions in penalties at higher levels, in the 30 to 40 mph zones it is unacceptable for the penalty points to be reduced. Every road safety and environmental organisation that has written to me about the Bill vehemently opposes the original proposal. Therefore, I hope that the Government will be able to announce, if not at the end of this debate, certainly during the passage of the Bill, that that proposal has been dropped. The Government have generally done well in resisting what one could call the extremists in the motorists’ lobby, or as the noble Viscount put into my mouth, the poop-poop lobby—those who believe that they have a God-given right to drive anywhere at any time and at any speed they choose, often with a mobile phone pressed to their ears and having had a few drinks before taking the wheel. Those are the campaigners. Indeed, they had their own television programme on the BBC, a matter to which I referred in an earlier debate. They are the kind of people who want to see an end to speed humps in residential areas and they want safety cameras removed altogether. I find the opposition to safety cameras perverse. The Government’s evidence, to which my noble friend referred, shows how effective they are. Their three-year evaluation report, published last June, shows that overall 40 per cent fewer people were killed or seriously injured at sites where safety cameras were introduced. There was also a positive cost benefit of around four to one. In the third year, the benefits to society from the avoided injuries were in excess of £221 million compared with enforcement costs of around £54 million. That is an area where there is great public support for safety cameras. Opinion polls consistently demonstrate backing for them, despite irresponsible media campaigning against them. I am pleased that the Bill gives no comfort to those who behave antisocially and put other people’s lives at risk. A number of proposals in it are wholly welcome. The increase in penalties for the use of a non-hands-free mobile phone when driving is just one example. During my noble friend’s time as president of RoSPA and during my time, the society carried out a huge amount of campaigning work on this issue which culminated in legislation making it illegal to use a non-hands-free mobile phone when driving. The Bill increases the penalties and applies—crucially, as other speakers have said—a penalty point system for the use of these phones. Certainly RoSPA, and I think other road safety organisations, supports this proposal. But my noble friend will be aware that there is a lot of support for the view expressed by the noble Viscount that the legislation should extend to the use of hands-free mobile phones generally. Research shows that it is the distraction of the conversation that affects a driver’s ability rather than his taking a hand off the wheel. So RoSPA and other road safety campaigners say that a ban on all mobile phone use would allow a much clearer message to be provided to drivers that phone conversations when driving are dangerous and result in road crashes, both during the conversation and in the period immediately after. The Government have also received advice on the even more controversial issue of drink-drive limits. The closing of loopholes relating to the high-risk offender scheme and the powers contained in the Police Reform Act 2002 are welcome. Also welcome is the plan contained in Clauses 13 and 14 of the Bill to establish a pilot programme to use alcohol ignition interlock devices as a way of dealing with repeat drink drivers. I am disappointed that more is not being done in the Bill on drink-drive limits because there is alarming evidence that after many years of seeing the numbers decline, the number of drink-drive casualties is rising. In 2002 there were 560 fatalities and 2,820 serious injuries in crashes involving illegal alcohol levels, compared with 460 fatalities and 2,470 serious injuries in 1998; and I suspect that the figures for 2003 and 2004 may show a similar alarming trend. That increase has been accompanied by a decline in the number of roadside screening tests for alcohol. Indeed, in Britain we now conduct fewer tests per head of the population than are conducted in almost any other country in Europe. The European average probability of   being breath-tested is one in 16 inhabitants—the figure for the UK is one in 67. There is widespread public   support, particularly among the road safety professionals, for the police to be given power to carry out targeted or intelligence-led breath testing. Therefore, if they know that drinking is taking place they can stop people who are in that area. I for one, although I know that this is a controversial matter, would not be opposed to the thought of random breath testing which exists in other European countries, particularly France. There is also very substantial support for reducing the drink-drive limit from 80 milligrams to 50 milligrams per   100 millilitres of blood. Professor Richard Allsop of University College London says in a recent paper that lowering the limit could save 65 lives a year. It would also bring us into line with most of Europe. I hope that my noble friend can say that the Government’s mind on this matter is not entirely closed. Finally, I turn to a road safety measure which does not feature in the Bill, but which would, none the less—on the Government’s own figures, helpfully provided by my noble friend in the response to a Starred Question from me on 21 July last year—save hundreds of road casualties a year. My question then was whether the Government could identify road safety benefits which would follow the introduction of single/double British summer time. My noble friend Lord Davies replied that a government commissioned report by the Transport Research Laboratory, published in October 1998, concluded that if the UK adopted single/double British summer time—that is, GMT plus one hour in the winter and GMT plus two hours in the summer—thereby making the evenings lighter, it could result in 400 fewer people being killed or seriously injured each year in Great Britain. My noble friend will recall that there then followed a short debate in which virtually every speaker expressed amazement that if the road safety benefits were so substantial we had not made this change. Perhaps the later stages of this Bill will allow us to return to that issue. I am conscious that there are a number of other important road safety issues, which there is not time for me to cover this afternoon. For example, I would have liked to have said something about the need for lower speed limits on rural roads, something to which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred, as did the noble Viscount, and the establishment of a rural road hierarchy. I would like to commend the Campaign to Protect Rural England for the quality of its briefing on that subject. These are matters to which we can return in Committee. Meanwhile, I am pleased to support the Bill and I thank the Government for bringing it forward.