Road Safety Bill [HL]

I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 71 and 81. Although I support the general tone of the noble Earl’s amendments, I am afraid that I feel it necessary to probe a little further, probably so far as to make it very difficult for some emergency services to operate. However, my amendment, which goes further than that of the noble Earl, Attlee, reflects my concern about the situation with the police. I do not refer to the fire or ambulance services but police car activities are getting out of hand. The press reported a couple of weeks ago on a Written Answer in the House of Commons, on 20   June, that gave the latest figures for fatal, serious and other injuries caused by road traffic collisions, involving all the police forces in England and Wales. In 2003–04 the figure had increased significantly from 1,259 in the previous year to 2,000. As I said at Second Reading, there is an extraordinary variation in the accident rate between police forces. That indicates that the national training scheme for drivers, which I believe now works quite well, is not working as well as it should. Amendment No. 71 would provide that police cars should obey speed limits unless responding to an emergency. I received a very interesting Written Answer from the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland. It says:"““The police can only claim exemption from speed limits in restricted circumstances which are defined by statute””." It says that they can exceed the speed limit,"““but only if the observance of the limit would hinder the vehicle in its purpose””.—[Official Report, 14/6/05; WA115.]" We must consider what the purpose is. There have been examples of senior police officers driving at ridiculous speeds being caught by their own black boxes. We talked about that at Second Reading, so I shall not repeat it. As you go about the City of London, the West End, or other towns, you wonder how many of the police cars actually need to have their blue lights flashing and their horns bleeping. I have not had any satisfactory answer to that, so it would send the right signals to the police force if they were more restricted than at present. It may be that—though it is not in my amendment because I did not have time to change it, but it provides the basis for discussion—were all police cars fitted with black boxes, as many are at the moment, it would be   possible for the Independent Police Complaints Commission to produce an annual report on the number of times these cars had exceeded the speed limit, and to ask the forces to justify them. Perhaps something like that would send the right message to the police force. It may be fine to get to an incident as quickly as possible, but if they are going to put other people or themselves at risk to the tune of the accidents which came out in this Written Answer, then something needs to be done. It is unsatisfactory. The first part of Amendment No. 81 is the same as the amendment relating to the speed limit, suggesting that it would do no harm for police cars to obey traffic lights as well. Going through red lights at high speed can cause serious accidents, be they with pedestrians, cycles or other cars. Do they need to do that all the time? I welcome the fact that the Royal Parks Police are being integrated with the Metropolitan Police, but it is time they stopped driving down the footpaths in Hyde Park just to get to their station in the middle of the park a bit more quickly—I assume to have tea or something. I cycle through the park regularly, and have seen them going at a speed which requires pedestrians to take avoiding action. They have not got their blue lights flashing. Why do they have to do it at all? We have 500 police officers who use bicycles, and that is fantastic. I do not think the motorcycle police or the police cars need to drive down the footpaths and cycle ways as they do in the Royal Parks for no particular reason. The other two parts of this amendment suggest that there needs to be some recording of speeding and other non-compliance with traffic regulations by police cars. A   check—I have said by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, but I think it should be the Independent Police Complaints Commission—would send the right signal that the public have had enough of speeding police cars. Of course there are emergencies when they have to speed, but the issue is the frequency with which they do so. I have talked to a number of policeman who say they can disobey the speed limits, red lights or any other traffic sign if it is in the course of their business—which includes going to work and, presumably, going to and from lunch. That is unacceptable. I do not think I have the right wording yet in this amendment, but I hope it will provoke discussion, and a reaction from the Minister.