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I hope that the Bill makes good progress. I cannot see that any hon. Member will object to it, although even a Bill drawn up by someone as skilled as my hon. Friend may need to be improved and added to in Committee. However, I am sure that it will go into Standing Committee and then on to the statute book.If I have any criticism of the Bill, it is only that the Minister already has powers, which he is using in the six towns that I have named. I am anxious to see the existing trial strengthened, improved and fully used. My hon. Friend's Bill will assist in such a process. I congratulate my hon. Friend, I wish him well and I hope that his Bill will have a speedy passage through the House.
10.36 am
Mr. Gerald Bowden (Dulwich) : I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) on introducing such an imaginative and necessary Bill. It strikes a chord in me, because two issues propelled me into politics. One was the inadequacy of the education provision in the area in which I lived and the other was the hazard of traffic to children in the neighbourhood. We live on a main road and we accept the hazards which that presents, but at the back and the side of the house is a fairly quiet side turning and a square in which children used to be able to play normally and happily. A rather canny motorist discovered that this was a rat run that enabled him to avoid the traffic on the main road. Others followed, and as a result children who had been happily playing there faced a sudden and unexpected hazard.
The two-year saga of persuading the local authority and the police to do something about this side road and quiet square that would protect the children playing there convinced me that, if one wanted to get anything done, one had to get on the inside track and become a member of that local authority. That ultimately brought me to this House. Therefore, the issue with which the Bill deals is close to my heart.
There are several aspects of this short Bill. They include safety, to which I shall draw attention, and the aesthetic environment, as it will do much to improve the quality of life, particularly in cities but also in many rural communities where traffic is becoming an unacceptable hazard and nuisance.
My constituency has two notable features that the Bill will quickly affect. First, it lies on the route from Kent and south-east England, through south London, and into central London. As the commuter traffic and heavy goods traffic funnels through that bottleneck into central London, the build-up becomes intense. In the morning, the radial roads are almost impassable. That represents a hazard to those who are driving, and especially to pedestrians and residents. In particular, it is a hazard to young children, who are so much part of my constituency.
I have said on other occasions that we have no industries in Dulwich except the education industry. We probably have more schools than any other constituency, by some geographical quirk. Throughout my time as a member of the Greater London council and as a Member of this place, it has always been of great concern to me and my constituents that something should be done to ensure the safety of young children on their way to school in the early morning and on their return in mid-afternoon, which are times when traffic is either at its height or is beginning to build up.
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On many occasions, when addressing public meetings--I am sure that what I am about to describe has been experienced by other hon. Members--I have faced authorities that have been unwilling to respond to problems and hazards, or have perhaps been indifferent to them. How many times have we heard the phrase, "Nothing will be done until someone is killed"? To introduce a scheme after someone has been killed, often a scheme that could have been introduced and implemented in the first place, is a terrible epitaph.Over the past few years, I have seen a number of schemes come into being. I pay tribute to the Metropolitan police traffic division, to Southwark council, to other traffic authorities and to the Department of Transport, which have taken note of problems and assisted in introducing schemes. For example, the refuge in Grove vale is of great assistance to the children who have to cross that busy road on their way to Grove Vale school. It has been of great benefit to them and has given great reassurance to parents, who have been worried about their children making the crossing.
Court lane is a residential road in which many young children live. In other circumstances, their parents would feel happy to allow them to go to school alone. However, before the introduction of road humps, they felt that it was necessary to accompany their children to ensure that they took full account of the problems that confronted them. The introduction of road humps in Court lane has calmed the traffic there and has persuaded motorists who would otherwise have cut through the area by using the road to avoid the main road traffic to think again. That has been of great benefit and value to those who live in Court lane. Their anxieties have been alleviated. I suggest that the Bill has relevance to several other problems that are still outstanding in my constituency and remain under consideration. First, there is the south circular road, in which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and his Department took an interest a year or so ago. I am delighted that, following strong representations from the local community, myself and the council, we have succeeded in persuading the powers that be that there should be no major upgrading of the road to make it more than a local feeder road. It will not become a major orbital route. That has been of some reassurance to the children who cross the road to go to school. There has been a particular hazard for those who go to Dulwich college. Some of the college's boarding houses and its preparatory school are on one side of the road, and the school itself is on the other. It is a road along which much heavy traffic speeds while children seek to cross it at the traffic lights. Often the children have decided to cross this road at places other than the traffic lights. That may not be advisable, but children are children. Consideration is being given--I hope that the Bill will speed up the process--to ways in which conditions can be improved for children who have to make the crossing.
One of the earliest examples of traffic calming was introduced by the estates governors of Dulwich. It was about 200 years ago that they introduced their tollgate in College road, which has had a calming effect because it touches the pocket. Unfortunately, the calming effect was
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no match for modern technology. The tollkeeper suffered severe injury as a result of irresponsible traffic passing through, and the system was temporarily closed.When the tollgate was temporarily suspended, traffic immediately built up, because motorists realised that they could pass along College road without paying or having to slow down at the tollgate. It was reinstated for an experiment, and there is now a wide-ranging debate within the constituency generally, but particularly among those who live nearby, adjacent to College road, on whether the tollgate should be reinstated and on the sort of charge that would deter those who might otherwise slip through.
Not far from the south circular road and College road is Dulwich village. At a crossroads is Dulwich Hamlet school, which is a junior school, and part of the Dulwich Village primary school, which is divided on two sites. One part of the school is on one side of the road that is known as Dulwich village and the other part is on the other side. Children have to cross the road at certain times of the day, which they do under close supervision.
No one can fault the responsible and serious approach that the teaching staff take when the crossing is made, but account has to be taken of the impatient driver who is driving through Dulwich village at a point where five busy roads meet. There is Court lane, which has been calmed slightly by the introduction of road humps. There is Carlton avenue, in which other experimental measures have been taken to try to calm the traffic. There are also Burbage road and Dulwich village. All these roads are used by through- running commuter traffic, sometimes including heavy goods vehicles.
Consideration must be given to how we can deal with this crisis point. I believe that the Bill offers an opportunity for parents of children at Dulwich Hamlet school and Dulwich Village school to alleviate their anxieties. That will be possible if the provisions in the Bill are implemented in their area.
Alleyn park and Alleyn road are two residential roads which have been discovered by commuters coming into London from the south-east. I have no fear that, in mentioning them today, I am opening an opportunity for those who might not know about them, since traffic-calming measures--humps and pinch points--have been introduced experimentally in both. Alleyn park is used by many small children who go to Dulwich college preparatory school, adjacent to which is Kingsdale school.
Even for a responsible motorist driving along the road, it is worrying to see the hazards that present themselves. There are other drivers who are exceeding the speed limit as they try impatiently to make up time while children are either alighting from cars or arriving on foot, with all the attendant difficulties. The problem in Alleyn park must be examined in the context of the Bill as we try to solve it.
I am mindful also of the James Allen's girls' school in East Dulwich grove, which is attended by many children who come from some distance from the area. Some arrive by car and others by coach. They have to be deposited in the proximity of the school--sometimes outside the gates and sometimes close by. Alleyn's school is in the same area and has similar problems. The hazards at school arrival and departure times are intense in those locations.
South Croxted road runs along the border between Dulwich and Lambeth. At its junction with Thurlow Park road is Oakfield school, where young children arrive and depart. Their parents are concerned because cars move off quickly just as the traffic lights change, or even jump the
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lights as they are turning red. Their anxiety is apparent on their faces as they wait with their children to cross the road. As a parent, I could never be happy about allowing a child to cross such a road on his own. Children need to be accompanied until they reach full maturity. The opportunity to cross such roads on their own may be part of the growing-up process for children, but the hazards are simply too great to allow it in these circumstances.I am currently dealing with the problem of Wood vale, a road which separates my borough of Southwark from Lewisham. The road runs through both my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples). It is used as a major cut-through road by commuter traffic trying to make a south-east and then an east-west movement into London. Its width and its length tempt traffic to speed, and it has no traffic lights. Although a residential road, it is fast becoming a major through-traffic route. That is a hazard to children.
There is also the additional problem that homes for the elderly and for the blind are situated along that road, and the hazard that that presents does not bear thinking about. The problem is currently being discussed between myself, the Metropolitan police and the Southwark and Lewisham councils. We have to find some way of alleviating the problems.
I have cited specific places in my constituency where incidents have occurred and where the threat of more exists. I take great heart from the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre has introduced a Bill which has the wholehearted support of the House, and which deserves the wholehearted support of all who care about the safety of our citizens, our constituents and, especially, our children. 10.52 am
Mr. Hugo Summerson (Walthamstow) : It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden), who is known as a most assiduous constituency Member of Parliament. Much of what he said about his constituency struck a chord with me, thinking about my own constituency. He spoke about the great need in many areas for the calming of traffic. The word "calming" is in the title of the Bill, and it is significant that such a word had to be used. It brings to mind an image of traffic having a malignant life of its own and needing to be calmed.
When I am sitting in a traffic jam, I sometimes ask myself how one would define "traffic". To me in my car, everyone else is traffic and therefore a nuisance. However, everyone else sitting in their cars must mutter to themselves. "Traffic--what a nuisance it is." Traffic is everyone else.
London and most of our other towns and cities were not originally laid out for traffic. When the Romans arrived here, they had no idea of the internal combustion engine ; their thoughts were more concerned with chariots and similar forms of transport. Many of our problems today stem from the way in which towns and cities were laid out.
Why does traffic speed whenever it can? Of course, very often it cannot speed because it is stuck in a traffic jam, but when it can, it does. That is when traffic-calming measures are most likely to be needed. Modern traffic is driven by the internal combustion engine. When it first arrived on
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the scene 100 years ago, no one dreamed that it could be not only a great boon and a benefit for most people, but the most dreadful nuisance.The internal combustion engine should not be allowed at all in our towns and cities. It can be extremely noisy, especially when it is in fast cars driven by young men. It is also a terrible polluter. Speaking on behalf of asthmatics everywhere, I can tell hon. Members how distressing it is to walk around our towns and cities when the weather is calm, still and cold-- as it was a few weeks ago--and there is a smog of traffic pollution.
On the other hand, what was it like before the internal combustion engine, when people travelled with the aid of the horse? Now, we tend to think of the horse as an environmentally friendly creature, but in the days when there were hundreds and thousands of horses everywhere, there must also have been stink and flies. People were employed as crossing sweepers and they would watch for someone waiting across the road. There were piles of manure everywhere, and they would sweep it out of the way so that people could cross.
Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) rose--
Mr. Summerson : I give way to the hon. Gentleman, although doubtless unwisely.
Mr. Banks : I am a little older than the hon. Gentleman, and I can remember London when horses were used for many purposes, although not in the numbers that he mentioned. He might be interested to know that a young fellow such as I could make a pretty penny collecting buckets of horse manure and selling it to the neighbours to use for fertilising their roses. It was not all bad.
Mr. Summerson : That was an excellent idea. I am not at all surprised to hear that the hon. Gentleman sold manure to his neighbours specifically to fertilise roses--no doubt, the redder the better. Manure can be used for other things, such as to fertilise the vegetable patch. Horse manure in its raw state is not terribly good for roses, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman killed his neighbour's blooms.
I support the Bill and hope that it can be used in conjunction with other measures. Should traffic be prevented from entering towns and cities? I also think that an increase in the number of flyovers for both traffic and pedestrians would be helpful. Roads have mixed uses--all too often, people simply want to get from one side to the other, but they cannot because of the traffic. The traffic then has to be held up, which is annoying. There should be pedestrian flyovers with an escalator at each side and a bridge over the road so that people can cross safely and the traffic move freely. I accept that the flyovers would not be beautiful, but they would be practical and popular.
There should be more flyovers for traffic. The Hogarth flyover at Chiswick does not look very good, and it probably did not cost a great deal to erect, but it is effective in keeping the traffic moving. Humps cost a great deal of money--I will not use the word "resources" ; I am thinking of mounting a one-man campaign against its use. When we mean money, why do we not say so?
Humps have other disadvantages. They are noisy for those who live near them. One hears the roaring of the car's engine, the squealing of its brakes, the thump as the vehicle hits the hump, and another roar as the driver
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accelerates away--often to the accompaniment of screeching tyres. The whole process is repeated a hundred yards down the road. Humps are also extremely uncomfortable for cyclists. I sometimes encounter one notorious hump on my way home. If I am forced a little way out from the kerb, I find myself almost airborne. That is very bad for my bicycle, and extremely bad for me. As has been said, humps also present difficulties to emergency vehicles. I am not against them in principle, but they should be used in conjunction with other methods of traffic calming.Many people are concerned about the speed of traffic today. Cars speed along Queen's road and nearby residential roads in my constituency. Constituents have asked me to intercede with the local council, to help to ensure that some form of traffic calming is introduced, because they fear for their safety and that of their children. That is just the kind of area where calming meaures ought to be introduced soon.
Although Walthamstow is part of Greater London, it is also a town. If you, Madam Deputy Speaker, visited Walthamstow, you would enjoy the experience immensely. I could show you the centre of Walthamstow village, with its charming 15th-century church and old, half-timbered houses. It is a lovely quiet area, but when traffic rushes through, its peace and tranquillity are destroyed. Some steps have been taken, but its residents are still concerned.
Also in my constituency are the two major traffic arteries of Forest road and Lea Bridge road. They are heavily used by vehicles travelling between London and Essex. Traffic-calming measures are needed there also, but in conjunction with other techniques to ensure that traffic can keep moving. If I may mix my metaphors, they are bottlenecks as well as arteries. If flyovers of the kind that I mentioned could be introduced, through traffic could keep moving and that would benefit all who live along those routes.
Buses are one of the best inventions of the 19th century. The more we have, the better. We need more bus lanes, and traffic lights specifically to control them. I am sure that, if the public could count on catching a bus without waiting too long--and knowing that it would be warm and comfortable, the fare would be reasonable, and the bus would keep moving-- more and more people would use buses. I attack those selfish, inconsiderate and stupid people who park in bus lanes. Buses ought to be fitted with extra-heavy bumpers to drive such vehicles out of the way, so that the buses can keep moving. Bus passengers would be far calmer if they knew that they would keep moving.
I want to put in a plug for buses on routes 38 and 55 in my constituency, which once provided a through route from there into the west end. Alas, they no longer do so. Local people want those through routes reinstated, and so do I. If more buses were on our roads, there would be less need for traffic-calming measures.
We could also have more trams. How I like the trams when we go to Blackpool for our party conference. I most look forward not to the long and boring speeches in the conference hall, but to boarding the trams and rumbling along the promenade.
Traffic lights are supposed to control junctions, but it seems that their timing is often deliberately used to slow
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the pace of traffic. Lights should be used to control road junctions or to ensure pedestrian safety, but not to slow traffic. Heaven knows that traffic does not move all that fast anyway. All traffic light timings should be set to the speed of cyclists. That would encourage more people to get on their bikes.More and more people are taking to using bicycles, and quite right too. I welcome the Government's announcement of 1,000 miles of cycle routes in London. That is a good thing, for the more that people take to their bikes, the better. Cycling is good for one. It is healthy, gets one out and about, and allows one to see things. It is a much more unselfish form of personal transport than getting into a car and causing noise and pollution. I am one of the London Members of Parliament who have been asked to do a three- minute spot on Greater London Radio, when I shall raise the subject of cycling. I will also be talking to someone from Friends of the Earth, which I know much supports cycling.
I want to give one or two words of warning to cyclists. I wish that they would use lights at night. People who ride bicycles without lights and who do not wear bright clothing pose a great danger and are asking for trouble. They must ensure that their bikes are properly illuminated.
On a miscellaneous point, where there is an arrangement of two or three parallel traffic lanes, that on the left should never be marked with an arrow indicating that vehicles in it can only turn left. That arrangement can make life extremely difficult for the cyclist who wants to move off straight ahead. If he stays in the left-hand lane, he faces the prospect of being carved up by any vehicles that want to turn left. If he moves to the middle, some idiot in the left-hand lane will decide to drive off straight ahead.
As to the future, I hope that city vehicles will all be electrically powered. That would be more environmentally friendly and quieter--and safer, because the speed of electric vehicles could be strictly governed. I hope that we will be able to ban the infernal internal combustion engine from our towns and cities and adopt instead quiet and safe methods of transport. Above all, let us have calm traffic.
11.8 am
Mr. Robert G. Hughes (Harrow, West) : It gives me great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Summerson), who made another of the usual inventive contributions that have marked his first term as Member of Parliament for Walthamstow. I am sure that it will be followed by many successive terms. If my hon. Friend's constituents have any regard for work rate and the diligence with which they are represented, they will substantially increase his majority.
My hon. Friend mentioned the "infernal internal combustion engine". He said that no one realised what the dangers were. My hon. Friend and I are probably two of the few hon. Members who realise where the first recorded pedestrian fatality took place. It was in my constituency, outside the speech hall of Harrow school, where my hon. Friend was educated. There is a brass plaque there to record it.
Mr. Hughes : Just in case there is any doubt, the plaque records the pedestrian fatality. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) for helping me to make that clear.
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I have high hopes for the Bill. Would not it be marvellous if we could hope for a brass plaque somewhere recording the last pedestrian fatality? It is a serious matter. We are talking about tragedies affecting individual families. Over the years, it has become clear that a proportion of such tragedies--probably a large proportion--is entirely avoidable. It is scandalous that we know that some of the deaths are avoidable yet nothing is done.I warmly welcome the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) has shown great skill in bringing it before the House in its present form. My hon. Friend showed skills of diplomacy that one would not necessarily have expected of a former bomber pilot in seeking to settle what appeared to be an argument between my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) and me. I can report that, in a sedentary conversation, my hon. Friend and I managed to clear up our argument. We concluded that both of us were right, which is always a comfortable conclusion to an argument, and that some traffic engineers and national bodies were very good and forward- looking whereas others were not. Perhaps we should recommend that those who sit on selection committees in borough councils and have to select new borough engineers ask the engineers their views on traffic calming.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) made an interesting reference to the remarks of the vice-chairman of the relevant committee of the Association of District Councils, Councillor Drury, who said of traffic -calming measures, "The average motorist will hate them." I am sure that Mr. Drury is at least partly right. Some motorists will hate them. But that begs the question : on whose behalf and in whose interests do we seek to introduce traffic-calming measures? Who comes first?
In 1980, I had recently been elected in a by-election to the GLC to represent Croydon, Central. A Greater London council traffic engineer had invented an ingenious scheme. To stop a rat run, he had simply reversed the direction of a short one-way road, thus making it impossible for motorists to avoid the intersection at the bottom of Gravel hill which people had hitherto sought to avoid. I received a huge number of letters of objection from people in Farnborough and other parts of Surrey and Kent--in fact, from anywhere except an address in that little road.
In those days, Croydon, Central was a relatively marginal seat so I was not particularly impressed, although I was impressed by what those living in the road said. They told me that people had been run over and that residents had not been able to get their cars out of their driveways in the morning because of the traffic jams. Their interests were paramount and even if the letters of objection had come from another part of my constituency--I can say this now that I no longer represent the area--I should have accepted the serious point that the people whose views should be taken into consideration are the people living in the road in question. We must consider the effect on their quality of life and the safety of their children. The Bill seeks to address that central question.
As I said in my intervention, the problem is that some traffic engineers have sought to clutch at straws in arguing against traffic-calming measures. They tell us that road humps are a hazard. I think that it was 1984 when my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development, then Minister of State for Transport, first introduced the parent
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legislation. The regulations have been changed subsequently. From my GLC files and my files from this place, I could produce an interesting chronology to show how traffic engineers set out their precise objections and how the Government met those objections in new regulations, only to find the traffic engineers raising new objections.Take, for example, the objection that road humps are a hazard. I can well recall what happened when I worked in Belfast for the BBC. I had never encountered road humps in this country and when I first found one, outside a police station, my hire car almost took off. The experience is extremely uncomfortable and I can assure the House that it happens only once. One gets used to traffic humps. I am pleased to tell the television licence holders that the car was a very nice Mercedes, which must have cost the BBC a great deal of money, so the experience was not as uncomfortable as it might have been. If people can get used to traffic humps in Belfast, there is no reason why they should not get used to them in the rest of the United Kingdom. I have heard traffic engineers argue that traffic-calming measures and road humps are ugly, quite inappropriate or out of place. Those trivial arguments simply do not weigh in the scales against the loss of human life and the tragedy that will result in the absence of the measures.
The hon. Member for Deptford was right about money. No one should run away from that, but I believe that money is only the endgame in the long chess game played by people who do not want the measures in the first place. I promoted a private Member's Bill dealing with the safety of children's playgrounds and the rubber surfaces underneath play equipment. Local authority officers who did not want the measures in their playgrounds used money as the endgame, having argued previously that the measures were unnecessary and the benefits unproven. Local authority members and council committee chairmen never reached the point at which they sought to argue with their colleagues for a reasonable slice of the money. I do not run away from the argument about money, and I accept that if we have traffic- calming measures in some roads, there will automatically be a demand for them in others when their good effects are seen ; but I do not believe that lack of money is preventing desirable
traffic-calming measures from being introduced.
The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) will know that I often speak on local authority matters in the House and often mention the London borough of Islington. I think that today will be a first because I propose to mention it to praise it.
Mr. Hughes : All right, I shall mildly praise it. No, I shall properly praise it. The other day, I drove through a part of the borough which I think is called Barnsbury, although I do not know the borough at all well. I was diverted by the police off a main road because of a traffic accident and drove through this area. It has been transformed by the most sensitive use of gently gradiated humps at road junctions and gentle chicanes.
Mr. Summerson : I lived in Barnsbury for 12 years. The traffic scheme to which my hon. Friend refers was introduced at the time when Islington had a Conservative-controlled council.
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Mr. Hughes : I am most impressed to hear that. The people in that area will be grateful for what has been done. The effects have benefited the whole community.
Parts of my constituency would also benefit from traffic-calming measures. The problem is that if one lists areas that would benefit from them, inevitably one misses out a whole host of others. People then wonder why one did not bother to refer to them. I have already referred to the road that runs through Harrow-on-the-Hill past Harrow school. Cars travel at fast speeds down the high street, which is a narrow, winding road. I have seen cars going down the hill at least 50 mph, if not faster. Boys from Harrow school are crossing the road at all times of the day. At Dulwich it is different. The boys there move from one part of the school to another at fixed times of the day.
The boys from Harrow school take great care. However, due to the work that is going on in Harrow town centre at Roxborough bridge, the amount of traffic has increased. Far too many cars are parked there, so visibility is difficult. The winding nature of the road adds to that difficulty. The road is a prime candidate for traffic-calming measures. I suspect that almost none of the cars that would be slowed down by traffic-calming measures are owned by people who live in the London borough of Harrow. It is the people who abuse the privilege of visiting the London borough of Harrow who cause so much nuisance and danger in the high street of Harrow-on-the-Hill.
Another problem affects Paines lane, Pinner. That was an ancient track which developed into a small road. It has been discovered by heavy lorries coming into Pinner from the Uxbridge road. Paines lane is completely unsuitable for heavy lorries. Width restrictions in particular would greatly protect the people who live in Paines lane and the historic high street in Pinner, which also suffers--it is a continuatition of Paines lane. The surrounding area would be enormously improved if traffic-calming measures were introduced in Paines lane.
Mr. Tony Banks : The hon. Gentleman describes a situation that most of us recognise from our constituency experience. What does he think about the old Greater London council's lorry ban? I cannot remember whether he supported it. I do not know whether he will be able to get his side, in the few weeks left to it, to do something about restoring the GLC lorry ban.
Mr. Hughes : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was about to deal with that very point. My GLC friends and I supported in principle the GLC lorry ban, but in Committee I moved an amendment dealing with the ban. One problem is that certain people have to be exempted ; they have to be able to get on with their business. Eventually, not many lorries were banned. Almost every heavy lorry displays a sticker, either a GLC lorry ban exemption sticker or the new London boroughs exemption sticker. I do not criticise the introduction of that measure, but it was not as effective as it might have been. The amendment that I moved would have enabled a lorry ban to be enforced in specific roads. None of us would object to lorries running all night on certain major trunk roads. Everybody, however, would object to heavy lorries going down Paines lane. A lorry ban that specified that lorries were banned from certain roads between certain hours
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would make a far more effective contribution to people's welfare and quality of life. More work by hon. Members, perhaps on a cross-party basis, is needed.Ms. Ruddock : I am most interested in the hon. Gentleman's comments. The Labour party has already adopted a policy that would designate lorry routes. We are following the example of many other European countries. We believe that designated lorry routes would make a real contribution to traffic-calming measures.
Mr. Hughes : I am delighted to hear that ; it makes sense. I am delighted to know that the hon. Lady is considering taking these measures down to local level. As she will not, however, be given the opportunity to carry out that policy, I am glad that my hon. Friend the Minister for Roads and Traffic has heard the point that she made.
There are different sorts of roads where different traffic-calming measures can make a great contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre has introduced a wide, enabling Bill. That is the best part of it. No hon. Member wants to be told what should be done in his or her constituency. Local residents and tenants' associations know precisely what they want to achieve. They know what is needed far better than borough council officers or even their Member of Parliament. The fact that this is an enabling Bill will enable a borough or any other kind of council to ensure that the right traffic-calming measures are introduced.
Friends of the Earth wrote to hon. Members who have shown an interest in these issues and asked us to introduce such a Bill if we were successful in the ballot for private Members' Bills. I was surprised to receive a proposition from Friends of the Earth with which I so thoroughly agreed and which was so very well thought through. The organisation targeted correctly the Members of Parliament that it thought would support the Bill. I am glad that it found the right target when it contacted my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre. Despite the fact that little time is left to us in this Parliament, I hope that the Bill will have a speedy passage and that it will reach the statute book without amendment.
11.29 am
Mr. Alan Williams (Swansea, West) : I am sure you will agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that Friday morning debates are normally quiet, but occasionally they reveal gems and surprises. I was somewhat startled to hear of the early age at which my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North- West (Mr. Banks) allowed himself to be seduced by the market economy. I shall be interested to hear whether my hon. Friend's neighbours, the beneficiaries of his activities, put his name forward for the young entrepreneur of the year award or the young environmentalist of the year award. However, in view of the nature of my hon. Friend's activities, perhaps they were reluctant to get close enough to him to secure his assent to the nomination. I want to give some celtic support to the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans). So far, the debate has been a home counties affair, but we all understand that our colleagues who represent other parts of the country have constituency commitments today. However, the Bill is as relevant to Scotland, Wales and the north of England as it is to the home counties. I understand that hon. Members who represent London
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experience the problems we share on a far greater scale than we, fortunately, have to contend with in our communities.The Bill is attempting to engineer out the shortcomings of human nature. It is trying to deal with the problems caused by the selfishness, stupidity and aggressiveness of motorists. We are trying to find engineering devices that will suppress those characteristics which we all see and which, if we are honest, at different times we all share as drivers.
It is appalling to think that, every single week, eight children die on our roads. That means that eight families will never recover from the horror of the accidents. We are delighted that the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) contributed to the debate. He said that he did not understand why some of the problems existed, because many drivers are also parents. However, the hon. Gentleman, in his generosity towards parents, overlooked the fact that we have a great capacity to compartmentalise our roles. At one moment we can think as parents or pedestrians about road safety, but, half an hour later, we can have a completely different perspective in our commuting role.
Nowadays, jumping the red light has become the practice, not the exception. There is nothing sadder than to see on such cars a sticker on the back window which says "Caution--child on board". That message is intended just for the weekends or the evening, because that same motorist will jump the red light in his rush to get a fraction ahead in the queue on his way to work.
When we are on the roads, we all believe that the idiot is the one in the other car. The Bill would attempt to devise ways in which to suppress and limit the idiocy in all of us once we get behind the wheel of a car. When one gets into a car, one steps into a self-centred, introverted, competitive cocoon, in which one thinks differently from when one is on the pavement. Similarly, we think differently when we discuss the problems of road safety in the abstract in the Chamber.
Stupidities are not practised only by the motorist. I suspect that many hon. Members have shared my anger when I see a parent at the side of the road, safely on the pavement, pushing a push chair or a pram part way into the road while they are waiting to cross. Stupidity is not entirely confined to motorists--although, justifiably, they can claim the lion's share of it.
My county highway authority has written to me to express its support for the Bill. In that letter, the director of environment and highways makes the following relevant point :
"One of the things we are finding is that our ability to introduce 20 mph speed zones in residential areas are extremely limited by the complex procedures that have to be followed, and all the necessary paraphernalia of road narrowings, humps, chicanes and the like. This is not to mention the considerable cost involved, and the need to obtain Secretary of State's consent on each and every occasion." I hope that the Minister will consider the role that the Department of Transport could play in expediting action once the Bill has concluded its passage, by some accelerated route, through both Houses.
When one tries to engineer out the shortcomings of the motorist, it is important to ensure that they fear the enforcement of the law. The other day, I was driving in south London through a slightly modified form of gateway, where the cars went through the limited centre
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section, with a bus lane on the near side. There was no barrier across that gateway as there is on those that are intended to prevent access except for fire engines. There were three cars going through the centre section and the two drivers behind me saw it as a great opportunity to get ahead in the queue. They shot through in the bus lane in the knowledge that no one could do anything about it. Even when we have something as categorical as a red light, motorists blatantly ignore it.In my constituency, a recent tragic case involved an elderly driver who was killed when a young driver shot the lights. In another appalling incident, a bus driven by someone from, I am sad to say, my part of the country, killed someone when the driver went through a traffic light when he arrived at the London end of the motorway. Of all the bad practices that have developed in motoring, nothing is more dangerous than the practice of jumping the red light. About a year ago, in a debate on road safety, I said that one of the ways I alleviated the tedium of driving in and out of the House every morning was to count the cars who jumped the red light. Such behaviour has now ceased to be the exception--it is almost practice, as not just one, but several following cars jump the red light. Accidents are averted only because drivers waiting at the lights are now becoming increasingly nervous about moving off straight on the green : one must watch for the idiot at the crossroads.
Problems are exacerbated by the sheer lack of awareness and ignorance of the highway code. I know that this issue is an old chestnut, but at some stage we must accept that we need to make the non-mechanistic part of the driving test more rigorous. It is all well and good for people to learn by rote to change gear and about the mechanical aspects of driving, but it is also important that, at the most receptive stage--when people want to learn because they want the end product of access to driving a car on the road-- good habits and practices, which are inculcated in the highway code are enforced on people who will probably be let loose on the roads until they reach the age of 70.
The problem of enforcement also means that we must ensure that magistrates exercise their power to punish motorists appropriately. As well as making the driving licence more difficult to obtain, it is important to make it more difficult to retain for people whose licence has been suspended. I am glad that there are moves in that direction.
We cannot alter human nature. We can only try to restrict it by the mechanical and engineering methods described by the hon. Member for Wyre, and to limit it by the use of sanctions, which means that the courts also have their role to play.
11.29 am
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