HL Deb 20 December 1967 vol 287 cc1435-7

2.41 p.m.

LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government for what reasons has a 50 m.p.h. speed limit been imposed on part of the Winchester by-pass.]

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, this bypass is part of the main trunk route from London to Southampton and Bournemouth, and it carries a very heavy load of traffic, particularly in the holiday period. It is in some respects substandard for a modern dual-carriageway and its accident record is well above the national average. In due course, the overall standard of the road will be raised, but until then a 50 m.p.h. speed limit will help to reduce the very considerable number of accidents.

LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU

My Lords, I welcome the announcement that this by-pass will be improved in due course, but does not the noble Lord think it rather illogical that drivers are able to travel at 70 miles an hour on the winding Hampshire roads which lead into this by-pass and then have to go at 50 miles an hour on the dual-carriageway?

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, if you travel at 70 miles an hour on the type of road to which the noble Lord refers you put in jeopardy not only your own life but the lives of others. I suspect that only relatively few—and they may perhaps, in my view, be madmen—would travel at 70 miles an hour along winding roads. As I said, this particular road has a bad accident record, and it was on the advice and with the agreement of the local authorities and the Automobile Association that this speed limit was imposed on this particular stretch of the road.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, can the noble Lord say when the trunk route to Southampton will be completed?

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, if my memory is right, I think I answered that question some days ago; but, frankly, the answer escapes me.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the sporadic and ad hoc fixing of these speed limits from time to time on main roads in the country tends to be confusing to motorists? Would he ask his right honourable friend the Minister of Transport whether she would wait at any an rate until we have the publication of her Working Party's Report on speed limit policy, until she has consulted with the interested bodies, which she undertook to do last July?

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, the Report to which the noble Lord refers will not be available for some time, and he will understand that the evidence of the present experiments over some 400 miles will take some time to evaluate. I am sure the noble Lord would not suggest that where there is clear evidence that there is a danger to motorists and pedestrians we should not take action to impose a speed limit; although I agree with the noble Lord about the dangers of doing it on an ad hoc basis. But in regard to this stretch of road, there have been discussions with the local authorities, the police and the motoring associations and, apart from the R.A.C., they all agreed that this decision was right.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that my information is that there have not been consultations with the motoring organisations?

LORD SHEPHERD

My Lords, I must refute that. I said that there have been discussions with, among others, the Automobile Association and the R.A.C.; that the Automobile Association agreed and the R.A.C. dissented.