Clause 24 - Penalty points
Road Safety Bill
10:15 am
Mr David Kidney (Stafford, Labour)
There are no amendments to the clause, but it merits a brief debate for at least three reasons. First, the courses dealt with here could become one of the Bill's more significant boosts to road safety. Secondly, the Government ought be congratulated on introducing such a measure. Thirdly, I have some questions about how the statutory provision here relates to current practice.
Drink-driving rehabilitation courses were established by law by the last Conservative Government in 1991, piloted in 1993, and made into a national scheme by Labour in 2000. They are now nationally available and well-established, with a statutory basis, national guidelines and approved course providers. The courts use them well enough; 30,000 people passed through them in 2003. They also appear to be effective, according to research and evaluation by the Transport Research Laboratory's paper TRL613, which says it is most people who go through such courses are unlikely to drink-drive again in the future.
That is what is in place already. Clause 24 proposes to extend those courses to other road offences, most significantly careless driving and speeding. In those cases, courses are already available. However, they are not on a statutory basis, hence this provision; nor are they as well established as the drink-driving rehabilitation courses in terms of national guidance, or even their national reach. It is down to the discretion of individual police forces to offer people the chance to go on, for example, a driver improvement course, instead of accepting a conviction for careless driving. The person pays for the course and undertakes the rehabilitation and education instead. In the case of speeding, some police forces exercise their discretion and offer a place on a speed awareness course, instead of going to court and collecting the fine and the points. Again, the person pays for that course.