Heavy Goods Vehicles (Safety) (Hansard, 21 March 1995)

§ Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to specify more stringent safety standards for heavy goods vehicles and to increase the penalties for failure to comply with those standards. There are 400,000 lorries in this country, and the Department of Transport says that, over 10 years, 17 per cent. of those lorries have been involved in fatal crashes. In 1993, 681 out of 5,935 fatalities—more than 10 per cent—involved lorries. It is important to understand that there is a real problem throughout the United Kingdom.

I want to ensure the safety of heavy goods vehicles by asking for increased staffing in traffic area offices, in the Vehicle Inspectorate, and in the police traffic divisions responsible for much of the enforcement. I want to impose a maximum of 11 hours on each driver, with a statutory rest period of 30 minutes in every three hours worked. It is important to set up a register of HGV driver training schools, and to have a nationally approved course for lorry mechanics. I should like also to widen the procedures for appeal to the traffic commissioners, so that we may include the rights of bereaved families to appeal against the decisions of the traffic commissioner.

The reason for all this is very simple. In December 1993, near Mold, Jane Gregory was killed when a lorry crushed her car on the Queensferry bridge. The lorry plunged off the bridge into the river, where the 26-year-old lorry driver was drowned. An inquest was told that the driver had not taken his rest breaks; and over the previous 10 days, from Northern Ireland to France and back to the United Kingdom, he had gone without his weekly rest periods, and on two occasions had gone without the minimum daily rest period. For one period there were no records at all, and the accident investigator, PC Gareth Owen, said that the high visibility at the time meant that the lorry driver should have been able to avoid crashing into the car.

In July 1993, four nurses died in their car in a tragedy on the M50, when a lorry tried to jump a queue of traffic by switching lanes, and ran over their Ford Fiesta. A passenger in another car was also killed. The lorry driver was jailed for 15 months, but Hereford Crown court heard that he was running late on the day of the tragedy because he had overslept.

University lecturer Susan Williams was crushed to death when a lorry with defective brakes and steering and other dangerous parts careered out of control down a hill, toppled on to her car and crushed her to death. The company involved, H G Pheasey and Son of Bakewell, which operates three lorries, was found guilty in September, in the magistrates court, on several counts of failing to maintain the lorry and comply with the tachograph rules. Mr. Pheasey was fined £2,300, most of it payable in £20 instalments. Despite previous convictions for mechanical defects and for one of his vehicles being found unroadworthy, he was allowed by the traffic commissioner to stay in business.

I have not yet mentioned the appalling case of Sowerby Bridge where six people were killed by a lorry with defective brakes. So we do not even have to think about the need for changes of the kind that I suggest: we know that it exists.

164 I must make it clear that I do not assume that all road haulage firms run vehicles that are substandard or dangerous; but there are certainly a large number of vehicles on the road which constitute a considerable danger to their drivers and to anyone who should have the misfortune to cross their path.

The Department of Transport, through the Transport Research Laboratory, did some work in 1988 and 1990 and decided that 7 per cent. of lorries had mechanical defects. It also stated that one in six of the lorry drivers involved in accidents was partly to blame, and that 2 per cent. of the accidents were due to insecure loads.

There have been repeated calls both from the traffic commissioners and from the industry—and often from police forces and various arms of the Department of Transport—for changes in the law. It is clear that greater punishment should be imposed, and that there should be far more frequent checks on substandard vehicles. It is even clearer that those who do this work must be fully trained and must have behind them suitable back-up services to ensure that they can find out what really is going on with heavy goods vehicles.

The reality, however, is that the Government, while paying lip service to such changes, are moving smartly in the opposite direction. Far from increasing fines, they are making it clear that they will not carry out the same checks in future. Ministers will deny that. They will say that although it is true that they are asking for a 20 per cent. cut across the Vehicle Inspectorate, including front-line services, that that will not in any way impair the ability of the Ministry to check adequately on road transport. I am afraid that no one will believe any such assertion.

Ministers will say that it is their intention to encourage the road haulage vehicle industry to produce higher quality. But they must know that, sadly, because of the competitiveness and the number of small firms that are running close to the uneconomic edge, there will be constant pressure on road haulage firms to seek to undercut one another. That will inevitably mean more pressure on drivers to drive for longer hours. There will be more cutting of corners and far less support for the responsible firms who seek in every way to run proper businesses in a responsible and intelligent manner.

There are a number of things for which the House should be asking. We should be asking the Ministry to liaise closely with the Home Office, to ensure that traffic divisions of the police forces, many of which are staffed by people who have specialised knowledge, are not run down throughout the United Kingdom. The Ministry should insist that police officers are available to carry out more spot checks, preferably six-monthly. It should insist above all that there should be no cuts in the front-line services of the Vehicle Inspectorate. The Ministry should be giving greater powers to traffic commissioners to insist on a rapid hearing of cases where fatalities or bad injuries have been involved, to take action against many of the firms concerned. I believe that the traffic commissioners are not only aware of the position, but have called increasingly for action to be taken and would welcome the support of the Ministry to ensure that that happens.

There are many simple changes for which the Ministry should be asking and which it should bring to the House to put on the statute book. In Japan, it is possible, because of a series of lights that are fixed to the front of any heavy goods vehicle, for anyone to tell the speed at which the 165 vehicle is travelling. Three sets of automatic lights give the onlooker a clear indication of the running speed of the vehicle. One light is illuminated if the vehicle is running at 40 kph or less; two if the vehicle is running between 40 kph and 60 kph; and three if the vehicle is travelling at more than 60 kph, which is the legitimate rate for vehicles in Japan. The speed indication lamps are quite clear—