THE HIGHWAY CODE

HL Deb 23 July 1959 vol 218 cc454-60

3.34 p.m.

THE EARL OF GOSFORD rose to move, That this House takes note of the Paper entitled The Highway Code, a copy of which was laid before the House on June 30 last, and approves the revised Highway Code contained in pages 3 to 25 inclusive thereof. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move that this House take note of the Paper entitled The Highway Code and approves the revised Code contained in pages 3–25. Section 45 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, provides that the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation shall issue a Code of Directions for the guidance of persons using the roads and also empowers him to amend, revoke and alter such Code.

There are a number of reasons why a new Highway Code has been prepared at the present time. The most important of these is the need to publish, as an intrinsic part of the Code, a set of rules to govern traffic movement on the new motorways. Also experience has shown that certain rules in the present Code are in need of amendment or should be deleted altogether and there are also new rules which it is thought should be brought into the Code. Finally, some amendment was necessary to the illustrations in the Signs and Signals Section.

As with previous editions of the Code, the greatest care has been taken in preparing the new edition. Some seventy interested bodies and organisations have been consulted and full note taken of their comments and suggestions. Furthermore, every effort has again been made to produce a Highway Code which will be readily acknowledged as being a distinct improvement on its predecessor. The use of colour has been further extended and sketches illustrating a number of the rules have been included to make the booklet more useful and more attractive. They also give it a contemporary appearance and will, it is hoped, stir the curiosity of the reader and lead him to study its contents more thoroughly.

The new Code is made up of 94 rules, which include 25 in the Motorway Section, compared with 71 in the existing Code. The structure of the Code is the same as before, with the Code first, the signals in the middle and the law at the end. There are few major changes in the main body of the Code, but perhaps I should mention two of them. The first is the dropping of the signal "I am ready to be overtaken" and the second is the addition of the rule that "turning traffic at road junctions must give way to pedestrians". The main objection to the rule concerning the signal "I am ready to be overtaken" is that it advises drivers to make a signal which, although not required for any manœuvre they themselves intend to make, may on the other hand involve them in legal difficulties arising out of the action of other drivers. Regarding the second point, the rule about "turning traffic giving way to pedestrians" follows practice in other countries. It is an obviously sensible rule and should promote the general safety of pedestrians. Part IV of the new Code, which is the new part dealing with motorway driving, is based on the pamphlet issued last Autumn before the opening of the Preston By-pass. One or two minor changes have been made but experience so far has shown that the original rules were basically sound.

Regarding the distribution of the Code, it is hoped that publication will take place in the late Autumn, in time for copies to be available to the public before the opening of the first sections of the London-Birmingham Motorway. It is not proposed on this occasion to make a large-scale free distribution, either to the general public (the heavy cost involved in this would be difficult to justify) or to all holders of driving licences. Many of these licences have now been renewed for three years and these drivers would therefore have to wait a long time before receiving a copy of the Code with their next renewal. It is, however proposed in accordance with present practice to issue a copy of the Code free to first applicants for provisional licences and also to visitors from overseas. This will consume about 1 million copies a year. For the general public the purchase price of the Code will be 6d. per copy, which will not in fact fully cover the production and selling costs.

My Lords, in conclusion I would ask all road users to pay the utmost attention to the Code. It is written in simple language; much of it is straight common sense and a proper observance of its rules would clearly do much to reduce the tragic toll of road accidents. I hope that your Lordships will now give it your approval.

Moved, That this House takes note of the Paper entitled The Highway Code, a copy of which was laid before the House on the 30th of June last, and approves the revised Highway Code contained in pages 3 to 25 inclusive thereof.—(The Earl of Gosford.)

3.38 p.m.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

My Lords, in a short space of two months your Lordships are asked once again to spare some of your time to give consideration to a social problem which has increased in those two months since your Lordships last debated it. The road toll goes on. We are asked this afternoon to give approval to this new edition after five years of The Highway Code. Let me put the noble Earl's mind at rest: he will receive no opposition to that. As a piece of exhortation it is excellent; it is the best that has been produced. But I am wondering whether the noble Earl would not agree with me when I say that exhortation in some aspects must take second place to positive action.

There are signs that the public conscience is being disturbed. It is indicative of that that throughout the whole of this week the programme broadcast by the B.B.C. "Lift Up Your Hearts", to which I expect a number of your Lordships listen every morning, has been devoted to this question of the moral responsibility upon every citizen of this country to stem the toll of road accidents. This morning I was particularly impressed with a very realistic appeal made by a Member of your Lordships' House, Lord Brentford, acting in his capacity as the Chairman of the Automobile Association. And so I beg your Lordships seriously to look at this Highway Code, when we repeat, time after time, the same words.

As the noble Earl says, it has ninety-four exhortations. As time goes on, the exhortations will grow in number, and the road toll will grow at the same time. Will your Lordships just look for a minute at Part I, which deals with "The road user on foot." Now although the vast majority of accidents take place in the built-up areas of our towns and cities, and the greatest single cause of accidents with pedestrians is stepping off the kerbs in traffic-congested areas, stepping off kerbs when their sight is obstructed by standing vehicles—not motor cars parked for a minute or two, but tradesmen's vans and lorries that stand there by the hour—and although that has been going on now for 25 years, we give no more thought to it than exhorting pedestrians to do the same old things.

Whatever criticisms are made by some people of the Minister of Transport, good or bad, let us pay tribute to him. He does at least try to do something. He has now, only to-day, pronounced that he is going to have a clear way on our trunk roads. If only he would have clearways upon the main streets of our cities and towns, and not allow the highway to be congested by these standing vehicles, the first, part of this Highway Code would not be necessary. There would be no standing vehicles from behind or in front of which pedestrians blindly step into the road. I ask the noble Earl who speaks on behalf of the Minister of Transport whether the time has not come when, in our thickly trafficked cities, the pedestrians should not be brought under some control; whether or not they should not have to obey traffic lights in the interests of their own safety. I believe pedestrian crossings are now out of date. They certainly are not very effective. I believe that pedestrian traffic lights at some of our junctions are the only means of saving pedestrians from committing many of these errors.

The noble Earl has said that one of the alterations in this new Code is that the turning traffic at a road junction should give way to the pedestrian. Has he thought of the confusion that that will bring about when the traffic filter arrow gives the traffic the right to turn? My Lords, these are some of the things which would all be done away with if, at every intersection and at every road junction in this country which is thickly trafficked, both pedestrian and vehicular, we had the all-red phase and the clear sign for the pedestrian to cross or for the pedestrian to stop. That is one thing we should do.

Then, Rules 20 and 21 in this Highway Code give instructions to the vehicular traffic upon the new white line—which, my Lords, I consider is a positive danger upon most of our narrow, two-carriage- way roads. Have your Lordships tried to work it out? There is a white line and a broken line; the broken line is on your right, so you have an encouragement to overtake. Now in the case of about 90 per cent. of those I have checked, the length of the permission to overtake runs for only twenty yards. If you are trying to pass a vehicle at 40 m.p.h., there is no motor car built to-day which, on the roads of this country, has the power of acceleration to pass another vehicle within the limits of the permissible broken line. And what do you find? You are halfway across on the wrong side, and are suddenly faced with a dual white prohibition.

Of course, theoretically the new white line is a good thing. It was adopted on the Continent, and is a very good thing for our broad, new, main roads. But on our dual-carriage roads, which are about as straight as a dog's hind leg, it is an incentive to accident. I am of the opinion that, on these roads, there is only one phase of this new instruction that will add to safety, and that is the double-line prohibition to overtake. The rest is, in my humble opinion, an incentive to accidents.

My Lords, there are just one or two other comments that I should like to make. If I had the opportunity to-day, with my experience, gained from the time I spent at the Ministry of Transport and in the time since, I would cut this Highway Code by half, and would emphasise the essential points more. In two different places in this Highway Code there is an exhortation to leave enough space in front so that a vehicle can pass by you in safety. That is all it says. Those of us who do a lot of motoring know that one of the greatest causes of accidents to-day is the build-up of heavy commercial vehicles which get into line astern, for hundreds of yards in some cases. May I give your Lordships a graphic illustration? I was motoring upon the A.34 the other day, and I was the fifteenth car behind seven heavy vehicles. It was impossible for any one of those cars to pass because all those seven vehicles were radiator to tail. It was ten miles before one car could get in front of that queue of commercial vehicles; and at the time it did that I looked round and there were ten more cars behind. Now if only this Code would graphically lay down an injunction that heavy commercial vehicles should never travel at less distance than 30 yards behind each other, there would not be the congestion on the roads of this country that there is.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, the noble Lord will, I hope, agree with me that, as a general rule, the commercial heavy lorry driver is rather better than the ordinary motorist as regards his driving.

LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH

That has been said so often that we all believe it is true. In fact, it is not. It was true years ago: but, you see, the motor car is a quicker vehicle. The front vehicle of this queue of commercial vehicles could not, by the nature of its load, travel more than 30 m.p.h. It is no good saying that the commercial vehicle driver is a more considerate driver than the motor car driver. By and large, that to-day is not true. It is the heavy vehicle, big and cumbersome, on the narrow two-traffic-way road that does not exceed twenty to twenty-two feet in width for many miles, that sets the pace for all the traffic on the road for miles behind. That is one of the points to which I should like to draw attention.

There is one other matter which I think is of substance. We have in the Code this remarkable direction in Rule 34 in the section on "Overtaking". It says: Overtake on the right. That, of course, is the recognised rule of the road. This rule does not necessarily apply in the following circumstances: (ii) In slow moving congested traffic when vehicles in the lane on your right are moving more slowly than you are. I have never known an exhortation with more danger in it than that. In our heavily-trafficked towns we are all brought down to a speed which is half the pace of the cyclist. We are passed on the wrong side by cyclists and motor cyclists, who build up at the traffic lights and are a source of constant danger. In another part of the rules there is the injunction to pass always on the right. But there is the case of the four-line road with dual carriageway where I should have thought that passing on the left was permissible.

I do not think that these exhortations will make much impression upon our problem. During the recent debate on road accidents in your Lordships' House I made some stern strictures on the way magistrates interpret the law and use their undoubted power of deterrence. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who spoke on behalf of the Government, said that he thought we could rest assured that the Home Office return of court sentences in 1958 would show a distinct improvement on the figures I quoted for 1957. I have these figures here and, by and large, they are worse. The deterrents are less. The average fine in cases of speeding, careless driving and dangerous driving has gone up 2s., and in the greatest deterrent of all, the suspension of licence, the number has gone down. In face of that, how can we expect the exhortations we have in The Highway Code to make any great impact upon our problem?

In my final word I should like to address myself, with your Lordships' permission, to the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack and who, on behalf of the Government, said that he viewed this problem of road accidents with such concern that unless something was done of a positive nature by the courts to reduce accidents, they would have to have second thoughts. I should like to ask him whether he does not think that that time has now arrived.