HL Deb 04 July 1932 vol 85 cc503-10

Read 3a (according to Order).

Clause 1:

Negligent driving resulting in death or bodily injury.

1. Any driver of a motor vehicle who, owing to his negligence, kills any person, shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years; and any person driving a motor vehicle who, by his negligence, causes bodily injury to any person, shall be liable on conviction to im- prisonment for a period not exceeding one year or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both, and in both of the cases referred to in this section the person driving the motor vehicle shall on conviction as mentioned above, unless the court for special reasons think fit to order otherwise, be disqualified from holding or obtaining a licence for such period as the court thinks fit, but not less than twelve months from the expiration of his term of imprisonment, if any, or, where no term of imprisonment is imposed, from the date of the conviction.

LORD MOUNT TEMPLE moved, after "motor," where that word secondly occurs, to insert "or other." The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is really immaterial whether I had made this protest against the Third Reading of the Bill or on the Amendment that I have put down because in my Amendment I seek to bring within the ambit of the Bill all those other users of the highway who, under the Bill as it comes before your Lordships, are definitely excluded. I think a protest is necessary in the first place because to my mind this is an absurdly drastic and quite unnecessary Bill and, secondly, because if you are going to put special disabilities on certain people who use the roads I submit it is quite fair that you should extend those disabilities—or obligations, if you prefer so to call them—to all who use the road, especially if, as I hope to prove, those who are excluded from the purview of the Bill are just as dangerous as, if not more dangerous than, motor drivers.

In my opinion, and the opinion has been expressed by the spokesman of the Government, the Road Act of 1930 is amply sufficient to deal with the troubles on the road if that Act were really properly imposed on the users of the road. If the Act were put in operation properly a great amelioration would take place in the conditions on the road. You may say that does not carry us very much further because magistrates and juries, and even Judges, in so many cases do not seem able to make up their minds definitely to punish severely those who obviously transgress good manners or kill and injure people on the roads. But that is really not the matter with which we are dealing this afternoon. What we are dealing with is a proposal to increase the penalties for misbehaviour, and if you do that in my opinion the only result, in the present frame of mind of magistrates and juries and Judges, would be a still further weakening in the application of the law—because if they do not apply the law now owing to a soft corner in their hearts for the erring motorist, then, if you give them no alternative but to apply severe punishment on conviction, I think the last state of the administration of the law will be worse than the first.

I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Buckmaster, is not here, because I was going to say to his face that I think he has a bee in his bonnet on this question and, frankly, that he does not approach it in such a judicial and impartial frame of mind as you would expect from a noble Lord who has had such a long and distinguished career in the law and has occupied such great positions. I am sure he regards every motorist as a motor bandit in esse or posse and the only tribunal he would approve of would be one consisting of the noble Viscount, Lord Cecil, Lord Lamington and himself, a drumhead court martial from whom there should be no appeal. That is not the view of one who has had experience in these matters and served in the Ministry of Transport with great distinction—I refer to Lord Ponsonby. He said in the Committee stage: I have been struck by the insistence there has been in the arguments brought forward by various Lords on the criminality of the motorist and the entire innocence of the pedestrian. Perhaps that is painting the picture with rather a broad brush, but there is a great deal of truth in this—that so many of your Lordships regard the motorist as almost outside the pale of the law and think that the pedestrian in anything he does is within his rights.

I do not drive myself. I am much too careful a man to do that. I prefer someone else to do it. But anyone who drives about the country and watches the antics of pedestrians is astounded at their indifference to other forms of locomotion on the roads except their own. If you are driving along a narrow lane in the country and there are three pedestrians, it is perfectly certain that two will keep on one side of the road and one on the other. If you provide, as we do in Hampshire, extraordinarily good footpaths, as likely as not one of the three will walk in the road and the other two on the footpath. In London the last thing that pedestrians will do is to use the subway to get to the other side of a street. If they come from behind stationary vehicles they usually do so without looking to see what is coming; and lastly, and not least, they allow oncoming traffic to come up behind them, and turn their backs to it. It is also a fact that in 1930, according to the report of the Chief of the Metropolitan Police, 70 per cent. of the fatal accidents in the Metropolitan area to pedestrians were due to the carelessness or want of judgment of the pedestrians, and I think a protest is appropriate against such a Bill as this, which seeks to saddle on the unfortunate motorist—of course there are some who ought to be punished very heavily—this stigma and this great disability.

Remember, that this Bill does not touch tram drivers, the drivers of horse-drawn vehicles, or the users of pedal bicycles. It is most unjust to take out one road user and saddle him with penalties which you do not impose upon the other users of the road. We are often told to think of the number of accidents which are caused by motor vehicles. I agree. Not an overwhelming majority, but a majority of the accidents are caused by motorists, but that is because the majority of vehicles which use the road are motor vehicles, and if it were not so it would be thought an extraordinary thing. A very considerable principle is involved in your Lordships' decision to-day, and I therefore ask you to consider these figures.

In 1931 755 fatalities were attributed by the Metropolitan Police to horse-drawn traffic and pedal cyclists, an increase of 11 per cent. over 1929. Then why are these people left out of the Bill? If they are increasingly dangerous to the public surely they ought to be included in the Bill. In 1931 there were 2,200,000 motor vehicles in use and 13,000 electric trams and trolley omnibuses. The fatality rate for motor vehicles was 2.6 per thousand and for trams and trolley omnibuses 9.1. Yet trains and trolley omnibuses are not included in the Bill. Then consider this. In 1930 there were 7,305 fatal accidents on the road, of which 861 were due to tramcars and trolley omnibuses, horse-drawn vehicles, horses ridden or led, and pedal cyclists—what I call the "good boys" of the road. In 1931 the fatal accidents on the road had decreased to 6,691–614 fewer people were killed on the roads than in the previous year. That is all to the good, and yet that fact is suppressed by the supporters of the Bill. The excluded people killed 874, or thirteen more, while the total deaths on the road had decreased by 614. To sum up this statement, in 1931, as compared with 1930, there were 614 fewer fatal acidents in this country. The people excluded from the Bill, those using horse-drawn vehicles, etc., killed thirteen more, and the motor car people killed 627 less.

Is this a time to bring in a Bill such as this, when you see that the people excluded from the Bill are killing more people every year, while the motor car people have such a large decrease in fatalities? What do these statistics show? They seem to me to show conclusively that we do not want any more legislation, but we want a continued application of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, with a tightening up of the administration and penalties included in that Act. What I am expressing are not my own opinions only. May I draw your Lordships' attention to what Lord Plymouth, as representative of the Government, said in Committee, because it is well worth recording what he said, and I think it was a very sensible and commonsense speech? He said that the Road Traffic Act was not two years old, and it should be given a proper trial; that you should now deal with the problem by administrative means rather than by legislation. He said that the Ministry and the Government had not been idle, and that the Home Secretary was about to issue a circular to justices of the peace drawing attention to the gravity of the situation in the light of the published statistics, and also that the Home Office in May had issued a circular to chief officers of police on the subject of the enforcement of speed limits for heavy vehicles. That is the official attitude with regard to this question.

May I draw your Lordships attention to a very significant report? It was issued only this week by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee. On page 7 of that Report they make a very encouraging statement and do not at all bear out the moans and groans of the supporters of this Bill. They say this: In the first six months of 1931 the total number of persons killed and injured in accidents recorded in the Metropolitan Police District was 25,717 while in the cor- responding period of 1930 the number was 28,010. So in the six months there was a diminution of 2,293 fatal and other accidents in the Metropolitan area. I submit to your Lordships that that is a very considerable diminution in the toll of the road and gives hopes for the future. They go on to say: In these circumstances we are inclined to the hope that the attention given to the subject, the safeguards provided in the Road Traffic Act, 1930, the appointment of police motor patrols and the various improvements which have been carried out in traffic signals, road signs, and the improvement of dangerous road junctions and corners have all contributed to greater road safety. I do not pretend, no one pretends, that all is well upon the roads. Some motorists I feel I should like to shoot at sight. But for heaven's sake do not let us in an assembly like this be carried away by the ill deeds of a minority to do foolish things which would hamper the majority.

Let us remember that this Act of 1930 is not yet two years old. A great deal has been done under it. The Government say that administratively they are convinced that a great deal more can be done, and I feel sure that if you will go on with the policy, within reason and as far as the money goes, of cutting off blind corners and above all having roundabouts where main roads cross in the country, and, last but not least, of helping the Safety First Association, who are doing extraordinarily good work in the London schools to teach the younger generation to avoid the dangers of the streets, then we shall be on the right road.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 9, after ("motor") insert ("or other").—(Lord Mount Temple.)

LORD DANESFORT

My Lords, I think those of you who have not followed the proceedings very closely would hardly realise to what issue the speech of the noble Lord has been directed. He was moving an Amendment to a Bill which has been read a third time. The Amendment related to this point only, that you should extend the liability for these accidents to other vehicles than motor vehicles.

LORD MOUNT TEMPLE

If I could have my Amendment I should not oppose the Third Reading.

LORD DANESFORT

But the Bill has already been read a third time, so I see no point in my noble friend's suggestion. As a matter of fact, the speech of the noble Lord has been to my mind of a very singular type. He is nominally moving an Amendment of a very limited character, and a very improper character, but he has made a speech which ought to have been made on Second Reading, a speech directed against the whole of the Bill. It is rather a useless piece of declamation, because the House has already decided against the proposition which he was endeavouring rather irrelevantly to raise. No necessity for this Amendment was suggested either on the Second Reading or on the Committee or the Report stages, and now at this late period he moves an Amendment as an excuse, I suppose, for making a speech directed against the whole policy of the Bill. I put on one side altogether such arguments as he used against the Second Reading of the Bill. I greatly regret that the noble Lord thought fit to make almost a personal attack on my noble friend Lord Buckmaster in his absence. He spoke of him as a man with a bee in his bonnet, and made use of other expressions which seemed to me singularly inappropriate, and not particularly fitted for expression in this House.

I come to the Amendment, on which he said very little, but he did make one astonishing statement, when he said that the persons who drive horse-drawn vehicles are just as dangerous as those who are included in the Bill. Your Lordships had the statement, even from the noble Lord himself, of the vast number of deaths and accidents due to motor vehicles. In 1930 the deaths were over 7,000. He did not mention in his extraordinary statement as to the innocence of motor drivers that in 1930 there were nearly 200,000 accidents caused by motor vehicles, and in 1931 202,000. The whole scope and object of the Bill is directed to the dangers caused on the roads by motor vehicles. Therefore it is rather an unusual experiment on the part of the noble Lord at this stage of the Bill to introduce an Amendment totally outside its scope.

LORD MOUNT TEMPLE

Surely, if it were outside the scope of the Bill my Amendment would not have appeared on the Paper.

LORD DANESFORT

I am not quite sure about that. Amendments get put down sometimes which, if not technically outside the scope of a Bill, are extremely irrelevant and highly objectionable.

LORD RHAYADER

My Lords, while I am not altogether without sympathy with the protest which the noble Lord has made against some of the criticisms of motorists, I hope now that he has made his protest, he will be content to withdraw his Amendment. Lord Buckmaster asked me to move the Third Reading, supposing that all controversy was ended, and I do put it to the noble Lord that it is a little unreasonable after the Third Reading to move an Amendment which so widens the scope of the Bill. It would make it a very different Bill from what it is.

LORD MOUNT TEMPLE

Certainly. In response to the appeal of my noble friend I will withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME

My Lords, I have a drafting Amendment.

Amendment moved— Clause 1, page 1, line 8, leave out ("thinks") and insert ("think").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 [Penalty for failure to stop, &c., after knowingly causing damage or injury]:

VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME

There is another drafting Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 2, leave out ("thinks") and insert ("think").—(Viscount Bertie of Theme.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Bill passed and sent to the Commons.