Clause 26 - Breach of requirements as to control of vehicle, mobile telephones etc.

Part of Road Safety Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:30 pm on 28 March 2006.

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Photo of Stephen Ladyman Stephen Ladyman Minister of State, Department for Transport 5:30, 28 March 2006

I hope that I will provide a convincing response. The closest I came to agreeing with the hon. Members for Wimbledon and for North Shropshire was when they said that the police should do a lot more to enforce road traffic legislation in respect of cyclists. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire mentioned his experience the other day. I suspect that the two individuals he described were committing at least four offences for which they could have been stopped and prosecuted, irrespective of whether a new offence is created. There is indeed already an offence of not being in proper control of one’s cycle, which is quite adequate to deal with the circumstances that the right hon. Gentleman described. What is lacking at present is the unwillingness of the police to enforce that legislation, a matter that I will discuss at my regular meeting with the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Last week, on two occasions, I saw a cyclist riding his bicycle the wrong way round Parliament square in front of at least four police officers standing at the gates of Speaker’s Court. If that person was not even stopped and told to be more sensible, is it any wonder that cyclists largely ignore the highway code? However, there is already legislation to deal with the matter. We do not need the amendment, which would just be another piece of legislation for some of those people to ignore. What we need is to encourage the police to deal with them.

During this debate, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire confessed to two things that surprised me. I always thought he was a car lover who understood motor cars, but I now discover that he has neither a Ferrari nor an Alfa Romeo, which says to me that he has no judgment whatever about Italian machinery. He also tells me that he puts his car “in park”, which means that he is driving an automatic, so in my book he is no lover of driving.

The right hon. Gentleman describes scenarios, such as when one is in a traffic jam on the motorway. The hon. Member for North Shropshire mentioned similar events. In such circumstances, if people are phoning to say that they are stuck, immobile and cannot get on, why cannot we leave it to the police to use common sense about not booking them? That is what I would recommend. If we go down the route suggested by the Conservatives and set some criteria determining when people are not driving their car, what would sort of situation would we end up with? The second a policeman tapped on a person’s window, saying, “Hey, you! You’re using a mobile phone,” the person would whip their car into neutral, put the handbrake on and say, “I can use my mobile phone in these circumstances. I’m not driving my car.”

Having called all Vehicle and Operator Services Agency officials swinish followers of the law the other day, the right hon. Gentleman has now referred to those honourable boys and girls in blue as nincompoops. If I were him, I would keep my 15 vehicles well away from the highway any time in the next few months.

It is reasonable for a policeman to stop people using a mobile phone when he sees them driving up to a traffic light and can stop them without causing any danger or inconvenience to other road users. However, the Conservative amendment would allow people to pull up to the traffic lights, use their handbrake and say, “Sorry, officer, I’m not driving my vehicle so I don’t need to listen to what you say about the use of my mobile phone.”