ROAD TRANSPORT LIGHTING (AMENDMENT) BILL (Hansard, 2 April 1958)

LORD SEMPILL

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. I have had the advantage of listening, I think, to all the debates in your Lordships' House on roads, and have been much impressed by your Lordships' ever-present anxiety over accidents and the determination to introduce any measure that will lessen these hourly tragedies. In these circumstances, I feel convinced that I can count on your Lordships' support for this permissive Bill, which seeks to amend Sections 2 and 3 of the Road Transport Lighting Act, 1957, so as to permit the use of amber-coloured reflectors on the pedals of bicycles and tricycles, the term "bicycle" being taken to include motorised bicycles and auto-cycles.

Those of your Lordships who have been on the Continent recently will have observed the growing practice of fitting amber-coloured reflectors to the pedals of bicycles to supplement the reflector on 631 the rear mudguard. The advantage of the rotating reflectors will be appreciated. This practice, so popular on the Continent, is illegal here, since the Road Transport Lighting Act, 1957, which merely codified former Transport Lighting Acts, contains a provision that reflectors facing to the rear must be red and that such reflectors must not be attached to a moving part of a vehicle. It is for these reasons that an amendment of the law is required to enable these amber-coloured reflectors to be fitted. Despite this illegality, there are, I think, many thousands of bicycles and mopeds, as they are called, in use with these reflectors fitted, due to the fact that the great majority of such machines have been imported from abroad. It was stated in another place, when this Bill was being discussed there, that two or three cycles belonging to police officers and fitted with these (at present) illegal reflectors might be seen in New Palace Yard.

I feel sure that your Lordships will agree that, particularly on unlighted roads, these reflectors are an additional safety precaution, and this Bill merely legalises their use on a voluntary basis. I think that if the Bill is approved by your Lordships, and when such permission becomes known, they will be universally adopted. I shall certainly take immediate steps to fit them to all my family's bicycles. The colour amber has been chosen for this reason: that one cannot depend on either pedal always facing in the one direction, so that there have to be reflectors on each pedal; and since one pedal will face forward while the other faces backward, and one must not show a red light to the front, one has to choose a neutral colour—namely, amber.

This Bill was drafted in conjunction with officials of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, and when it was introduced in another place by the honourable Member for Twickenham, he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 578 (No, 16), col. 1004]: … I have the permission of my right honourable friend the Minister to say that he will not oppose it. Indeed, he thinks that good will be done by the Bill. Your Lordships will, I feel sure, agree that when driving at night on the average tarmac road, particularly on a wet night, it is very difficult for motorists to spot 632 cyclists in time to avoid the necessity for a sudden swerve. I am convinced that the use of these amber reflectors on pedals will greatly minimise this danger. The danger to cyclists is shown by the 1956 figures, which show that 200 were killed at night; 2,174 were seriously injured, and 6,388 received minor injuries. By day, the corresponding figures for the same year were 449 killed, 7,505 seriously injured and 32,452 slightly injured.

I do not feel that this permissive measure requires any more recommendation to your Lordships, but perhaps I may observe, in conclusion, that I attended a few days ago a conference convened by the British Council for Rehabilitation, which was addressed by Mr. Gissane, the director of the Birmingham Accidents Hospital, who stated that in the last sixty years there had been 232,000 deaths on the road, and 10 million people injured. And Mr. Gissane prophesied a 50 per cent. increase in the next sixty years. So it is surely right, my Lords, that every measure to lessen this appalling total should be introduced. I beg to move.

EARL BATHURST

My Lords, it is my pleasant task, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government and my right honourable friend in another place, to welcome this Bill, and to congratulate my noble friend Lord Sempill and my honourable friends in another place on the fact that it is before your Lordships. As the noble Lord has said, any measure which will cut down the terrible accident rate, on bicycles in particular, and especially by night, will, I feel sure, be commended in your Lordships' House to-day.

On behalf of my right honourable friend, I have made up two categories of people who ride upon two wheels. First, there are those whom I would call "cyclists"; they ride expensive and well-kept machines, of the best tradition of the British cycling industry, and they ride at great speed prodigious distances. They, at expense to themselves, take trouble to see that their machines are equipped with the latest devices and gadgets for the safety of themselves and other road users. This Bill will enable these people, 633 should they have equipped themselves with reflecting pedals of the Continental pattern, which, as the noble Lord has said, will reflect an amber light both to the front and to the rear, to keep them within the law of the Road Transport Lighting Act, 1957. The other category of "two-wheelers" I shall refer to as "bikers"; and for no better reason than that, on the whole, they refer to their machines as "bikes", and that the machines are probably kept in a coal-house or some other place out of the way—at the bottom of the garden possibly—among other domestic paraphernalia. Those two-wheelers, on the whole, probably have no idea whether their back light is alight or whether it is not; and it is probably that section of the two-wheelers who cause the most danger on the roads.

When this Bill has passed through all its stages it may well encourage not only the great cycle industry (and there is no doubt that the British cycle is the finest machine of its sort in the world) but also the "bikers" to equip all bicycles with reflecting pedals, in a way that is common practice on the Continent. I feel sure, that, if your Lordships do use bicycles, most of you will be in the "biking" category, and I suspect that you would not trouble to equip yourselves especially with these amber reflectors. I am certain that this Bill will be acceptable to your Lordships, and on behalf of Her Majesty's Government and my right honourable friend in another place I wish the noble Lord and the sponsors of this Bill all success in getting it through all stages. I beg to support the Bill.