Ministry of Transport.

Part of Orders of the Day — Civil Estimates, 1939. – in the House of Commons at on 5 July 1939.

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Photo of Captain Euan Wallace Captain Euan Wallace , Hornsey

I have a great deal to get through, and I think it would be for the convenience of the Committee if I could be allowed to make my speech as I planned it. All these points can be raised later and they will be answered. I am not suggesting that, because the police ascribe less than 2 per cent. of these investigated accidents primarily to road conditions, accidents could not be reduced by more than 2 per cent. if we could make our road system as perfect as we should all like to see it, and, I would add, as perfect as the Minister of Transport would like to make it. The principle of segregation of traffic is accepted by the Ministry for the trunk roads for which they are directly responsible, and we do our best to impress upon highway authorities the desirability of adopting it for their roads whenever possible. A great deal has already been done by eliminating blind corners and other dangerous points, and by remedial measures such as traffic lights and warning signs, and I can assure the Committee that work upon these lines will be continued to the full limit of our resources. But the point I wish to make is that however much could be done by physical improvements on our road system it would not provide a complete solution of the accident problem. No road can be made absolutely foolproof. Further, even if we had unlimited money to spend on our roads the removal of every feature which might, given a careless driver, contribute to an accident could not be accomplished within the lifetime of the present generation.

We are, therefore, thrown back on the third of the factors which I have mentioned, the road user, and it certainly is significant, although I do not for one moment wish to claim that it is conclusive, that the accident analysis to which I have already referred attributes the cause of go per cent. of the accidents to what is described as the human factor. If by some means all the people who use the roads, and that means pedestrians and cyclists as well as motorists, could be induced to be unselfish, considerate and circumspect on all occasions, there would be no road accident problem as we know it; but I fully realise that this is a counsel of perfection. Of course, if we could do away with human frailties we should eliminate a great many other problems besides that of road accidents.

Education, judicious propaganda and the development of a system of co-operation between road users of all classes seem to me to offer the best prospects of an early and substantial reduction in the tragic toll of death and injury on the roads; and here we have at any rate something encouraging to go on. Of recent years particular attention has been paid by education authorities to the training of school children in road sense and road conduct, and it is a hopeful sign that in the Registrar-General's figures for deaths due to road transport those for children of under 15 years of age have dropped by one-third in the seven years from 1930 to 1937, and 1937 is the latest year for which the figures are available. I hope that I shall not be accused of stressing the importance of the human element because I am complacent about the present state of our highway system or of stressing it as a means of justifying a lesser expenditure on the improvement of roads than some hon. Members no doubt believe to be possible at the present moment. I should like to assure the Committee that what I have said about the human element arises from a profound personal conviction acquired over 30 years as a motorist and even longer as a pedestrian.

Unless and until we can make our roads completely foolproof they must be used with regard to their actual condition, and if a driver takes a chance at a cross roads in spite of having been clearly warned of what is ahead of him, surely it is fairer to attribute to him an accident which results from his lack of ordinary care rather than to attribute it to the fact that he was not physically prevented by a flyover or a roundabout from taking a very obvious risk. I am very sorry that I am not yet in a position to give the Committee a fully considered view on all the recommendations for the prevention of road accidents which were made in the report of this Select Committee. There are, as hon. Members who have read the report will know, some 250 recommendations. Some of them are highly controversial; some of them would require legislative action and in consequence could not be discussed this afternoon; and some of them affect other Departments besides the Ministry of Transport, notably the question of what are usually called "courtesy cops," which comes under the Home Office. The Alness Report obviously merits the most careful examination by the Government—