Clause 50
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
5:30 pm
Stephen Hammond (Shadow Minister, Transport; Wimbledon, Conservative)
This clause relates to the most important and necessary road safety development. Anyone who is seriously interested in road safety will not and cannot oppose the clause. Anyone who has taken a briefing from Network Rail will have seen that the incidence of this offence on the railway network is increasing. It poses a threat to other drivers on the roads and to train drivers and passengers. What concerns us about the clause is that the scale of the punishment does not meet the seriousness of the crime.
I invite any member of the Committee who has not done so to ask Network Rail to provide them—it will be happy to do so—with the DVD briefing that deals with the problems caused by motorists not obeying traffic signals at level crossings. It is the most scary and disturbing DVD that people could watch. There is the driver who decides that he will play chicken with the oncoming train and there is the driver who plays chicken with the barrier descending. There is the driver who goes around the line of traffic and the half-barrier and across the track—the train passes less than three seconds later. There is the driver who goes around the line of traffic on to the railway line, sees an oncoming train and reverses into the front car in the line of traffic. This is a serious offence, committed with intent. It is not a careless act, and it is time for us to recognise that.
If the Government are serious about catching hardened criminals and continual offenders and those people who act with the intent to endanger the lives of others on our roads, it is time to increase the penalties. Amendments Nos. 74 and 75 would give magistrates considerably more flexibility. Six months is not sufficient, 12 months would be more appropriate. This offence is as dangerous to public safety as drink-driving is, and, therefore, it requires the same period of disqualification.
Amendment No. 76 is slightly different in intent and effect, and I suspect that given what the Minister intends to do with clause 51, we will reach some agreement. If a person causes malicious damage to a bridge, it is an offence. However, if someone causes damage to a bridge by skidding on black ice, which might be considered to be driving without due care and attention, it does not seem right that that person should be subject to imprisonment. It is worth combining amendment No. 76 with amendments Nos. 74 and 75 because it highlights the seriousness of the offences listed in clause 50, and it is the intention of amendments Nos. 74 and 75 to increase the penalties for these most serious of offences.