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Mr. Flynn: The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that the Bill refers to bars made of metal, not the type that he may be about to describe. Can he tell the House--he has not answered this question--whether he is being paid for his contribution to the debate today?
Mr. Atkinson: I find that an insulting remark. If I were being paid in any way for doing this, I would have declared it. I had absolutely no knowledge of the Association of Protection Bar Manufacturers until yesterday. When I saw the Bill, I took the trouble to ring Mr. Scott, the editor of Off Road and 4 Wheel Drive magazine, to ask whether there were two sides to the story. He said, "Yes, there are." He told me that, if I wanted to hear the other side, I should ring up that organisation. That is my sole interest. In fact, I have not even communicated with the association. I simply received an extensive fax, stating its case. I assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that no cheque was attached to the fax.
Manufacturers are studying ways to make bull bars more user friendly, by making the surface of impact much softer and making them from plastic, which will not be caught within the provisions of the hon. Gentleman's Bill. The bars should have energy-absorbing features and should not have any features likely to catch or entrap pedestrians or cyclists. They should also spread the load of impact over as large an area as possible and not block the headlights.
The hon. Member for Newport, West mentioned the problem with airbags and bull bars. The magazine states:
if the vehicle was fitted with standard bull bars. Only Suzuki recommends that its vehicles should not be fitted with the bars.
The European aspects have been touched on. No doubt my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with what the European regulation is, but as I understand it--perhaps he will put me right--the European Community is working on a directive to make the bonnets of all cars user friendly. A European Union-designed car front is a slightly chilling thought. No doubt, we shall be seeing stories in the newspapers saying that the traditional Rolls-Royce lady will have to disappear. That will also have a considerable impact on vehicles such as Land Rovers, Range Rovers and the other four-wheel-drives, which are much heavier than ordinary cars.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds talked of Volvos and read out an illustration about a Citroen Xantia. By their nature, four-wheel-drives are heavier and bigger. Irrespective of whether it is fitted with a bull bar, there is always the likelihood that if a pedestrian is struck by a four-wheel-drive vehicle, he will suffer more injuries than if he is struck by a family saloon. That is probably inevitable. Similarly, if a pedestrian is struck by a heavy goods vehicle, his risk of injury will be vastly greater than if he is struck by a Ford Fiesta. That is one of the facts of life. Surely we do not propose to ban Range Rovers, Land Rovers and heavy goods vehicles.
Mr. Den Dover (Chorley):
I am an agnostic in my attitude to the Bill, but I think that it goes over the top. Threats of possible victimisation of fellow colleagues do not go down well with me.
In many instances, bull bars are found not only on the front of vehicles. There is talk of offensive weapons on vehicles, but there are bars on the corners of vehicles to protect lights. They are to be found on lorries as well as on cars and four-by-four vehicles. They are also on the rear of vehicles. Others may not call those bars bull bars, but I do. They are bars that provide protection. Recently I have experienced two instances in which, unfortunately, my car lost its nearside front winkers and lights, both front and rear. I would have been delighted to have some sort of protection. The bill was virtually £100 for two small pieces of glasswork.
Bull bars are fashion accessories. There is a tremendous accessory market throughout the transport industry,and long may it last. Many jobs depend on it. I have no objection to vehicle owners using bull bars as fashion accessories. They make the vehicle look more appropriate to the circumstances in which they want to use it. They attract vehicle enthusiasts generally. The magazine industry that is based on the latest gadgetry and fashion is to be applauded. Computers, cars and vehicles generally
are involved. I welcome the industries that have mushroomed over the past five or 10 years as a result of the interest in accessories.
The design of these appliances is all-important. We are talking about pedestrians being hurt by bull bars, but there is nothing to stop them being designed and produced using materials such as polyurethane. If we adopted that approach, damage would not be caused to pedestrians if they were hit. At the same time, vehicles would be protected along with their occupants. Such bull bars could be attractive. They could be produced in all colours.I see no reason why they should be considered as ferocious accessories. I accept that there are some mad people who want to assert their authority on the road, and we are aware of road rage, but many people look after their own vehicles and are proud of them.
Mr. Nigel Griffiths:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the bars about which he is talking would be exempt under clause 2? The example that he has given is a bull bar that would be exempt from the Bill's provisions. Has he not read the Bill?
Mr. Dover:
I do not want tight, restrictive legislation that could lead, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) said, to imprisonment. We should not be in the game of over-regulating car users. Vehicle users generally are going about their business, enjoying leisure activities or travelling to work. We do not want to put unnecessary restrictions on them. We want instead to ensure that they have vehicles that are fit for the purpose to which they want to put them, and that they can ride where they wish and how they wish.
It is important that, as well as protecting pedestrians or anyone else, bull bars protect vehicles and their occupants. Clearly, impact absorbtion is important also.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury for St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) mentioned children in minibuses. Minibuses, frankly, are open to impact, particularly by lorries, and I dread to think what might happen if a minibus with 20 or so children scrambling about inside without seat belts was hit by a lorry. In my book, there is nothing wrong in having protection back and front, ensuring that the reinforcement is there, in the interests of protecting the occupants, particularly those of a tender age.
I draw the attention of the House to a note from the Library on bull bars, which has been alluded to. It relates to personal injury road accidents in 1994. Twenty-nine police authorities listed in the briefing produced figures. I shall raise one particular point. Under the heading, "Accident distribution", the table lists the number of accidents that were fatal, serious or slight. The total population covered by the 29 police forces that reported bull bar accidents is approximately 29 million--well over half the population of the United Kingdom. The figures show clearly that the total number of accidents involving a vehicle fitted with a bull bar, or pedestrian accidents involving such a vehicle, amount to only 1 per cent. of the total accidents in those police authorities.
One might say, "That's irrelevant. So what?" The fact is that I asked the hon. Member for Newport, West(Mr. Flynn) how many vehicles he thought had bull bars fitted. He said that the number was reducing, and that people were removing bull bars. Fine. He estimated that
there were 500,000 such vehicles in this country. I think that at the most there are 25 million vehicles in this country. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister knows the exact number--
Mr. Norris:
There are 24 million.
Mr. Dover:
Half a million out of, say, 25 million--to make the arithmetic easy--is, I think, 2 per cent. In other words, the hon. Gentleman has said that 2 per cent. of vehicles are fitted with bull bars, yet in the police authorities only 1 per cent. of accidents involve such vehicles.
Mr. Flynn:
I do not want to mislead the hon. Gentleman. I said at some length that that survey is entirely discredited, from the evidence of the police themselves. There is no way to explain how one county force reported 129 casualties, and a neighbouring county reported none. The report is not plausible, because it was not treated with any seriousness by the people who took part. Those who have analysed the figures, from some of the police forces that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, who did take it seriously, have come to the conclusion that there were 70 deaths and 400 serious accidents. They are not pressure groups; they are independent bodies, such as the Transport Research Laboratory and the RAC.
Mr. Dover:
I welcome that intervention. All that I am trying to point out is that the figure is statistically significant. Otherwise, surely those police forces would have made a nil return or just said, "Sorry, we don't have the detailed information." Perhaps some of the areas do not have many accidents, or have zero accidents involving bull bars. As we know, statistics can be twisted to show anything, but what I am saying is that approximately2 per cent. of vehicles are fitted with bull bars, but only1 per cent. of accidents involve such vehicles. One can give equal weighting to the figures, and the table from the police authorities is official. A new survey by the RAC shows that 70 deaths a year could--I emphasise the word "could"--be caused by bull bars. I would put that against the figures in the brief from the Library. The House of Commons Library has no axe to grind and provides us with wonderfully accurate and unbiased briefings.
"Jeep, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi all crash-tested their airbag-equipped vehicles and found there was no chance . . . of malfunction"
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