Road Safety Bill [HL]

I remind the Committee that I am a member of the Thames Valley Police Authority. I have discussed with the officers concerned how a graduated system would be administered. Many motorists already contest the evidence produced of a speeding offence with a fixed penalty, whether detected by a speed camera, a mobile van or a traffic policeman. The more graduations you produce in the system the more correspondence you will get. People will argue that they were going a little slower in order to receive a lower penalty—obviously they will not argue that they should receive a higher one—and the police are already burdened with a huge amount of   correspondence from motorists contesting the evidence produced. The police exercise discretion in making prosecutions—for example, people are not prosecuted for going past speed cameras at 31 miles an hour—but chief police officers obviously do not broadcast to everyone the kind of discretion allowed. But some discretion is exercised to allow for both the car speedometer being faulty and the camera equipment being faulty. People are not prosecuted for very minor offences. I draw attention to the huge number of people being prosecuted at the moment on the M4 motorway near Bristol, where three road workers have been killed and seven seriously injured because people are exceeding the 40 miles an hour limit by as much as 40 or 50 miles an hour. As the noble Baroness opposite said, speed kills—and it kills many people. We have to be mindful of that but we must not load more bureaucracy on the police. Bureaucracy keeps policemen in the police station answering letters when they should be out doing other jobs. From the figures published last week, I believe that the county of Hampshire, which has resisted very firmly a reduction in traffic policemen, has done rather better than a number of others. Many other police forces have cut the number of people out on the road considerably. As the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, said, a roads policeman can exercise some discretion. He will know, for example, whether there is a school in the locality, whether it is a straight road in open country and good weather, whether it is an empty motorway at night. A speed camera, of course, cannot exercise discretion; it needs someone else. All films taken by cameras are passed through the eyes of someone, who refers them to a police officer if a very serious offence has been committed. Normally, a camera is able to verify if someone has grossly exceeded the speed limit, has overtaken on double white lines or indulged in dangerous driving, and the case is taken to court. But you will be opening a can of worms if you go down the road of variable penalties.