HC Deb 23 February 1955 vol 537 cc1409-18

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kaberry.]

10.24 p.m.

Mr. William Keenan (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

I make no apology to the House for again introducing a matter of road safety—a subject which I have raised on previous occasions. The aspect which I want to develop tonight is the lack of pedestrian crossings.

Three or four weeks ago, the House was nearly full all afternoon and evening, and nearly 500 Members voted in the Division on that occasion. They were concerned about possible irrevocable mistakes being made through the execution of alleged murderers who had denied their guilt. I am raising a question tonight about the fact that every year there are 5,000 killed on our roads—many murdered, if I may so put it.

I am very anxious that some aspect of the question of road safety should be raised from time to time. In 1953, the last year for which I have complete figures, 797 of the 5,090 killed on the roads were children under 15 years of age, and 2,200-odd were pedestrians. Many of these deaths followed accidents at crossings which have been established for the protection of pedestrians. In my judgment, the accidents were due to careless driving, speeding, indifferent driving and, in many cases, taking alcohol in too great a quantity.

There ought to be more crossings. That, I think, applies all over the country. I represent a built-up area in Liverpool, and I live in another built-up area in Bootle. In Liverpool, in 1951, there were 571 crossings. I want to anticipate the answer of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that the former Minister of Transport was responsible for reducing the number of crossings. I am prepared to say that he was. He took the advice of a staff similar to that which the present Minister has. I think it was a stupid, wrong and retrograde step to reduce the number of crossings by 66 per cent.

There were 571 crossings in Liverpool in 1951, and in July last year they were reduced to 153 zebra and police-controlled crossings. I obtained those figures from the city clerk. The city has 35 miles of double-carriageway and many more miles of single-carriageway roads. There are 22 police-controlled crossings included in the 153 crossings. In Bootle, in 1951, there were 69 crossings, and today there are 25. There are about 10 miles of main roads in Bootle. In every mile of main road there are two or three crossings which are alleged to be safety points for pedestrians to cross the roads. I ask the Minister where pedestrians are to cross those roads apart from those points.

I come to the question of zebra crossings. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), on the last occasion I was speaking on this matter, was twitted by the Minister for not being as cognisant of these matters as I am. He said that these crossings are no use. I think they are. However, although zebra crossings are designed for the use of pedestrians, 89 people were killed on zebra crossings—or pedestrian crossings, as they were called—in 1953, and 686 were seriously injured on them.

Mr. Paul Williams (Sunderland, South)

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has not much time to say what he wishes, but I intervene because I wish to help him. Will he accept as a fact that some of the difficulty about safe crossing on zebra crossings arises from so many bus stops being placed very close to the zebras?

Mr. Keenan

That is not the pedestrians' fault. I am making a plea for the pedestrians. It may be that there are faults in the local authorities' planning. It may be that the Minister does not give sufficiently specific or adequate instructions, or enough instructions.

Mr. P. Williams

I was trying to help the hon. Member.

Mr. Keenan

In 1954, 80 people were killed on zebra crossings, and 785 were seriously injured on such crossings, which are the only crossings for pedestrians on the roads. At what other places, I ask the Minister, should pedestrians cross the roads, apart from zebra crossings?

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

Will my hon. Friend allow me to remind him that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary himself has said that these zebra crossings are unsuitable for young children and old people?

Mr. Keenan

I do not agree with that. I believe they can be safe crossings if they are respected by all road users, including the motorists.

Why were there 800 accidents, why were 80 people killed, on zebra crossings last year? Because motorists approach zebra crossings as they approach most other places. They have not got control of their cars. If a pedestrian goes on to a crossing, that is just too bad for the pedestrian. At every crossing at which people presumably have the right to cross the road, every motorist should approach in such a way as to be able to pull up. If he is not able to pull up he is guilty of careless or indifferent driving. There can be no question about that.

I insist, and I insist that the Minister should take note of it, that at every place arranged for enabling pedestrians to cross the road safely they shall be able to cross safely. I do not want to walk on to a crossing just when a car is approaching it, and without giving any indication of my intention to cross. I do not want to do that; nor does anyone else. The pedestrians have a duty to be as cautious as they can be. The fact is, however, as the figures I have quoted show, that many of the motorists show a total disregard for the need to approach these crossings in a safe way. It is scandalous that there should be such tragedies as there are on these crossings.

I turn to the question of main roads. Generally, they are between 40 feet and 60 feet in width. In Bootle, where I live, there is a road nearly two miles long, which runs from one end of the borough to the other. It is a main road, included in 40 bus routes, and the traffic leaving Liverpool for Southport goes that way. There are only three crossings, one at each end and one midway. The road varies in width between 40 and 60 feet.

We want refuges in the middle of the road, where children and old people can wait half-way across, until the traffic on the far side of the road has cleared, before they proceed to cross the second half of the road. Refuges like that are required in Liverpool, too.

My complaint, as a result of what is happening on the zebra crossings, is that motorists are not sufficiently careful. Motorists are allowed to travel through built-up areas at 30 m.p.h., but the Minister, the police, and everyone knows that the majority of motorists travel much faster than that. It is a common occurrence to see them going at 40 m.p.h. through built-up areas. The trouble is that we have not enough police to keep an eye on them. The motorist is allowed to do as he likes. Too little attention is paid to him, though a new Bill may do something to check the road-worthiness of vehicles.

Figures for 1952–53 also show that more accidents occur from 10 p.m. onwards, after the public houses are closed, than during the day. They are a clear indication that motorists are not conscious of their responsibilities. We worry about criminals but allow 5,000 people a year to be killed on the roads, half of them being pedestrians and one of every six a child under 15 years of age. Hon. Members can draw their own conclusions from the attendance in the Chamber tonight, as on other occasions when this important subject has been raised.

Now we are to have a great road programme so that our traffic may move more speedily. I said on a previous occasion that I should like to see roads made of cobblestones to prevent people travelling as fast as they do. Everyone who has a car or motorcycle seems to worship the god of speed. In the interests of potential victims of murder on the roads something more must be done.

The Minister may say, as he has said before, that where there are no speed limits there are fewer deaths on the roads. But that is because fewer people live in areas which are free of speed limits. One can travel at 60 to 70 m.p.h. on stretches of the road to Manchester from where I live, because after one leaves the city there is scarcely a place on the road where large numbers of people foregather. But in Liverpool and other cities, thousands of people have to dodge the traffic in crossing the roads.

Pedestrians have to cross the road, whether they like it or not. The roads were there before the motorists came along. What does the Minister propose to do to help these pedestrians to cross the roads? The zebra crossings are too few in number, and motorists abuse them by the toll they take of pedestrians who attempt to use them.

I should have liked to speak at greater length, but I want the Minister to have time to reply, because it is important for us to have his reasoned and considered views. I want him to tell me what pedestrians are to do, whether he is prepared to comment upon what I have said about the predicament of pedestrians, and whether he is prepared to take stronger measures against those who murder men, women and children on the roads to the number of more than 5,000 a year.

10.41 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams (Sunderland, South)

I am grateful to be allowed to intervene. I wish to make a few extremely brief remarks. I should have thought that one of the answers to what the hon. Member has said was that in the centre of major cities pedestrians would be well advised, in their own interests, to cross at the traffic lights at important intersections.

Mr. Keenan

Traffic lights are not very safe places for pedestrians to cross in the major cities, because the traffic goes every way.

Mr. Williams

It is on that aspect that I wish to make my point. At major intersections, where the traffic is held up, pedestrians should have a right-of-way over traffic which is filtering through to the left or the right. That would mean a safe crossing for pedestrians. I hope that in due course the Ministry will be able to ensure that pedestrians are ensured a safe crossing when the lights are with them, and that they will have precedence over the road traffic.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend will be able to answer me at this short notice, but I should like him to tell me what percentage of accidents occurring at pedestrian crossings have been due to the carelessness of motorists and what percentage due to the carelessness of pedestrians. It is a question not of apportioning blame but of learning the reason for accidents which have occurred at crossings. If it is that motorists are completely to blame, it is right that the matter should be fully exposed. If pedestrians are partly to blame, that is also worthy of note.

I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will also be able to pay some attention to the danger which occurs through bus stops being too near pedestrian crossings, a danger which is more obvious under night conditions. It is a subject which worries anyone who uses the roads. I shall be glad to have a satisfactory answer to the point.

10.43 p.m.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins (Bristol, South)

I am sure that we all wish to assist my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkdale (Mr. Keenan) in the objects which he has in mind, but my opinion is that the use of extravagant language will not necessarily advance the case that he wants to make. I have been a road user for more than 20 years. I try to exercise due care, as I believe the majority of motorists do, and I do not think that some of my hon. Friend's observations about motorists were completely justified.

If my hon. Friend had confined himself more to criticism of the type of thing that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) mentioned, it might have been more useful, because those who use the roads know that many of the accidents which occur on zebra crossings happen because of the situation of bus stops and the non-observance of the new regulation that cars shall not be parked less than 15 yards from crossings, which applies only to the nearside of the road and not to the offside.

The other day I had a terrific shock. I feared that I should knock a pedestrian down. A vehicle was legally parked on the offside of the road, but it prevented me from seeing a lady with a perambulator who was leaving the pavement on that side. Anyone going at 30 m.p.h. thinking that the crossing was clear, could easily have found himself in difficulties.

There is one other point which I would like to raise in the short time left before the Parliamentary Secretary replies—and I might add that I think the subject merits a longer debate—which is that the Ministry of Transport will sooner or later have to consider the making of regulations which are binding on the pedestrian as well as on the motorist.

Mr. Keenan

Five thousand pedestrians are killed in a year.

Mr. Wilkins

There are only a few moments left, and I did not interrupt my hon. Friend.

I want to cut my remarks short, and I was saying that the Ministry will have to consider regulations which are binding on the pedestrian. Once some person is legally on the crossing and is in possession of it, and a motorist starts to pull away after that person has passed, it sometimes happens that another person appears and "picks up" the crossing when nearly halfway across the road. Could I ask the Parliamentary Secretary who, for instance, would be legally responsible if in those cases the motorist brought his car into collision? I mention this example because there are so many things which need clarification. Everybody wants to provide greater safety on the roads, but we have to be reasonable, and we have to remember that responsibility is a two-way affair between the motorist and the pedestrian.

10.47 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Hugh Molson)

It is quite impossible for me to do justice to a matter of this importance in the eight minutes which are left to me in which to reply. First, however, let me point out that we have had very conflicting advice given to us in this matter.

The hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) has withdrawn, after making an intervention, but his views are well known to the House. He considers that zebra crossings are dangerous and undesirable, and he would like to see them all swept away. I would say to him that I only wish he would go around approaching the local authorities on this subject. If they could be persuaded to listen to him, which they might not be very willing to do, perhaps they would not write to me as frequently as they do, asking for permission to designate more of these crossings.

The hon. Member for Kirkdale (Mr. Keenan), on the other hand, although not entirely satisfied with zebra crossings, asked for more of them to be provided. That seemed to me to be his argument; but I think the right hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes) was entirely correct in the policy which he adopted. He came to the conclusion that what was then known as the Belisha crossing had become dangerous because so little attention was paid to it by the motorist. Therefore, he reduced the number of what we now call the zebra crossings to about one-third the number of the Belisha crossings which existed previously.

The effect of that has been that zebra crossings are treated with far more respect by motorists than were the previous crossings. I have never claimed that zebra crossings, any more than any other form of crossing, other than a bridge or subway, are perfectly safe. There is no way of avoiding the need for the exercise of discretion and judgment by the pedestrian, as well as by the motorist.

In the new Highway Code which Parliament has just approved, we show on the back cover that a good driver, driving a good vehicle in broad daylight, on a dry road, and travelling at 30 m.p.h.—as he is entitled to do in a built-up area—cannot stop within 75 ft. Obviously, if the ground is wet and slippery, the time which it will take him to stop is even longer. It is, therefore, essential that pedestrians should exercise some traffic sense and discretion in using zebra crossings. It was for that reason that, some time ago, I indicated that they were not perfectly safe for children or aged people who have not got a traffic sense.

As far as the crossing of roads by small children is concerned, my Department, in association with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, conducted a three-month campaign last summer to try to reduce the number of accidents to children below school-going age. The result of propaganda over the last 20 years has been to bring about a most remarkable and satisfactory reduction in the number of children of school-going age killed upon the streets. That is as a result of the instruction which is given to them in schools. We say that, in. the case of small children, they should not be allowed on to busy roads unaccompanied by a responsible adult.

Liverpool, the town of which the hon. Member for Kirkdale was chiefly speaking, has, I am sorry to say, been slow in lighting its zebra crossings and in marking the 45 feet of prohibited length on the approach side of the zebra crossing within which parking is not permitted. Even today, some 20 zebra crossings still await the electricity supply to light the beacons. Thirteen have not yet been provided with the waiting restriction studs, and five of these will probably present such difficulties as will require adjustment of the crossing position or its abandonment.

I regret the exaggerated language that the hon. Member for Kirkdale has used. It is wrong and, indeed, absurd to talk about these casualties, which we all so much regret, as being in the category of murder. The responsibility does not rest primarily upon the Government. It rests upon all road users to exercise proper discretion. I will certainly look into the point that has been raised by the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins), whose much more moderate and constructive speech gives me greater guidance on the steps that I ought to take.

I will look into the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunder-land, South (Mr. P. Williams) and will write to him. We are all co-operating in trying to reduce the number of road accidents. The position at present shows a considerable improvement, but it is not satisfactory, and certainly there is no complacency in the Ministry of Transport.

Mr. Keenan

Where should pedestrians cross in safety other than at zebra Crossings?

Mr. P. Williams

I understood my hon. Friend to say that motorists were entitled to travel at 30 miles an hour in a built-up area, a speed which requires a distance of 75 feet in which to stop. Why, then, is the distance of 45 feet chosen for the studs? Surely my hon. Friend will agree that motorists themselves should use due care and attention in approaching the beacons.

Mr. Molson

The 45 feet is the distance in which it is not permitted for a cat to be parked or stopped. It has no bearing upon the car which is in motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at six minutes to Eleven o'clock.