Clause 17 - Speed assessment equipment detection devices
Road Safety Bill
5:00 pm
Mr Christopher Chope (Shadow Minister, Environment and Transport; Christchurch, Conservative)
I am no promoter of the Road Angel. All I know is that a large number of people have purchased them. A colleague of mine told me that his wife had bought him one for Christmas, and when I told him that it cost the best part of £400, he realised how generous she had been. My knowledge of Road Angels goes little beyond knowledge of their price and where one can purchase them. If the Minister wants information about Road Angels, I suggest that he uses all the resources available to him as a Minister to find out a bit more.
It is very important that, whatever the Government intend by the clause, people who go out and buy equipment so that they can identify accident blackspots and be safer drivers should know whether such equipment will be banned. If there are fixed camera sites at accident blackspots without operational cameras in them, I would ask why not, and why a game of bluff is being played. The Minister seems to think that anyone who exceeds the speed limit is of a suicidal tendency. I do not think that that is the case. We must try to ensure that speed limits are realistic and command respect and support from the motoring public.
There are accident blackspots, and it is reasonable to enable people to know where they are. There are anomalies with some of the speed cameras that are available at the moment. I think that they are called Truvelo speed cameras and they are forward-facing. We mentioned earlier that speeding motorcyclists are the biggest problem on the roads. They cannot be detected by Truvelo forward facing cameras. The Government still allow their installation, although they fail to detect the biggest speeding menace on the roads.
The Government are rather muddled. A clear definition of what will be excluded under the Bill would be better; that definition should be limited to pieces of equipment that interfere with law enforcement and have a jamming device. I ask the Committee to support the amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 11.