Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I rise in this case to be a bit cautionary. A problem with discretion is that, when cases go to a magistrates’ court, the penalties imposed by the magistrates in a wide range of road traffic offences are at the very lowest end of the scale. When I have been out with the police—I declare an interest as a member of the Thames Valley Police Authority—and a lorry has been stopped in a deplorable condition, the VOSA inspector has told me that if the case is taken to the magistrates’ court the driver will probably be fined £200. At the time, that was a tenth of what was allowed, and was less than the cost of one tyre, when the whole set of tyres on the lorry needed to be changed. The fact is that many magistrates have no idea of the amount of trouble which people are causing. When somebody is required to name the driver at the time, very often the person who does not give that information is shielding a criminal. Some of them are very serious criminals, so they have a duty to tell the police who was in the vehicle. The week before last, I went out with an automatic vehicle registration detector. We had a huge number of drivers who were not the registered owner of the vehicle, or were uninsured, had not paid their tax, had not had an MOT, were engaged in crime or were carrying drugs. Is this amendment really designed, as I fear it is, to protect what one would call ““the innocent motorist””; or is it, in fact, another obstacle in the police carrying out very serious duties which they have to do every day? It is essential that somebody who has a vehicle knows who is driving it. That—and we are coming on to it in a moment—constitutes an insured risk. The driver of the vehicle is the person who should be covered by insurance. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has referred to a driver of whom the registered owner is afraid. Is that person insured? Are they really allowing somebody who is known to be violent to drive their car while probably uninsured? There are many uninsured drivers now. I support the strength of this legislation, because it is a weapon which the police need to use. They must use it sparingly, and go to the person quite politely and ask them who was driving. It is only when they fail to get that information that they must start to turn up the pressure. The person does not get the penalty points overnight. It is a long, drawn-out process.