Clause 17 - Penalty points
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Owen Paterson (Shadow Minister, Transport; North Shropshire, Conservative)
I do not want to delay the Committee by making the same points as were made in the previous debate, because the clause centres on flexibility and variation according to circumstances. The Government propose points of two to six, and amendment No. 55 proposes points of one to six, giving even more flexibility to allow circumstances to be taken into account.
An interesting report published last week suggested that 1 million drivers are now on six or more licence points. Perhaps the matter has been rather dramatically put, but it has been said that, as there is a chance of getting six points on any speeding offence, some people are only one flash away from losing their licence completely. I think that we would all agree that people should not be driving so fast that they get six points, but a large number of people who have been caught—I think mainly because of the big increase in speed cameras—are now reaching the point where their driving is affected: they are so paranoid about being caught by a speed camera that they are concentrating on the cameras rather than on their driving technique, although I have only anecdotal evidence of that.