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Mr. Knight: I think that a wide body of opinion took the view a few years ago that these devices were probably illegal, but no one was certain. It was only when a court case was brought fairly recently by an enthusiastic Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor against a driver who was using a detection device that the issue was settled in law. In that case, as I understand it—the Minister will no doubt correct me if I am wrong—the judge decided that the car owner was receiving a signal that was intended for him, so no offence was being committed. The court therefore decided that these devices were lawful, and that is probably why the Government have put this clause in the Bill.
I support everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said. There is an overwhelming, unanswerable case for outlawing devices that interfere with a speed detection device, and I do not think that any member of the Committee would dissent from that. However, I disagree with the Minister's thinking on detection devices. The Government's whole policy is to allow detection to be easier. What is the difference between a can of yellow paint and a device in a car that achieves the same end? The Government have decided in their wisdom that speed cameras should be visible and motorists should see where they are and not be caught by surprise. If a motorist decides that he wants to have in his vehicle a second aid of an audio device, in addition to the visual yellow paint on the camera, why are the Government saying that should be illegal?
Mr. Kidney: To answer the right hon. Gentleman's question, is not the difference that not every camera housing has an active camera inside it?
Mr. Knight: That is the case, and some cameras that still use it may be out of film. However, cameras that are not active are changed. A camera casing that is not working one week of the year may, in another week or month, be active. Such units are changed around. I do not think that the amendment is pandering to the boy racer; it enhances the Government's decision that cameras should be visible and motorists should be alerted to their presence.
Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD): I think that the right hon. Gentleman missed the point about extra camera cases. We have discussed cameras at accident blackspots, and one advantage of empty camera cases is that drivers do not know whether they are live or not, so they slow down. If someone has a
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detector device in the car, it will tell him that a camera is not live and he will not have to slow down and will be inclined to speed through a camera placed at a potential accident blackspot. Therefore, devices that beep on the front of a car will alert drivers to non-live cameras and they will increase their speed in those circumstances.
I believe that the Conservative amendment is wrong for a second reason. The principle of knowing where cameras are is not wrong because, as I argued last Thursday, I am favour of clear signs saying that a fixed speed camera is ahead in order to slow vehicles down. However, the detectors do not detect only fixed speed cameras; they also detect stationary vehicles—the white vans that we discussed last week with the cameras outside the back—and handheld devices.
In my part of the country, we have a great deal of difficulty in trying to get the police to monitor specific areas of speeding that are not accident blackspots. One of the arguments that I put to the Government is that there should be a liberalisation of the rules governing where the police can put mobile speed cameras, so that they can deal with specific and persistent offenders, particularly in residential areas.
I can think of one example, which comes up time and again when I am knocking on doors. In Teignmouth, a beautiful seaside resort, there is a new small housing estate at the end of Third avenue, and there are two or three boy racers—they are young drivers—who drive down a narrow road at high speed. There are low speed humps on the road but that does not slow their speed down from 35 or 40 mph in that section of the road. If we allowed the boy racers to have one of those detection devices on their vehicle, they could drive down that road any time they wanted in the certainty that they would not be caught, because when they turned into the end of Third avenue, the little device would go ''beep'' and they would slow down. I want those drivers to be caught and prosecuted, and I want them to learn that it is not safe to drive at 40 mph down a very narrow street with houses and parked cars on either side and with young children about.
If we allow the amendment that has been proposed, it will do two things. First, it will allow drivers to speed through cameras at accident blackspots and, secondly, it will allow people who are persistent offenders in particularly dangerous areas to avoid being caught when driving in a dangerous manner.
I thought that my hon. Friend probed very well with his amendment, and agree with his comment about boy racers. As we have discussed, the problem is not with boy racers alone; there are many middle-aged men going through mid-life crises who like to sit astride very large powerful motor bikes or to drive souped-up cars. There are a number of people out there who really ought to know better. I hear laughter from the Minister. I confess that I do have a sports car, and that I enjoy driving with the roof down. I have always had sports cars—[Interruption.] It is not an example of a mid-life crisis. It is something that I have
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always done, so if it is a sign of crisis it is an early-life crisis and mid-life crisis and no doubt I shall also end up with a late-life crisis.
Although those satellite mapping devices show where there are fixed cameras, they do not indicate whether they are live or not, and therefore a motorist will tend to slow down when one is indicated. If the purpose of signing those cameras is correct—the hon. Member for Christchurch made the point that motorists will slow down at those points—it strikes me that those systems are an advantage for road safety, rather than a disadvantage. However, the satellite devices have a failing. A friend has one, but they are not always updated very fast; the cameras go in faster than the system is updated. He was therefore rather taken aback to get a speeding ticket for a camera that did not show up on his system; he had become over-reliant on it. That is his fault for speeding in the first place and not paying attention to what he was doing.
Essentially, that system is no different from being able to go on to the internet to find out where the speed cameras are. What the clause does, and the probing amendment does not do, is to make it illegal for someone to find out from other sources where the speed cameras are. The satellite devices give local knowledge of where the speed cameras are to someone who is driving—we discussed local knowledge previously. They are an effective way of slowing down vehicles. The measure should be supported.
5 pm
The Chairman: Before I call the Minister, I know that it always helps to focus minds on where we are going. If the Committee is going to sit past 5.30 pm, the Chair always likes to adjourn for a break, but I am assured that we are going to slip a little but not too much. I hope that, if people do not want to adjourn for a break and return afterwards, they will keep their minds focused. I say that to try to be helpful to Members, not to be difficult.
Mr. Jamieson: I will certainly obey your strictures, Mr. Pike, because we do not want to detain the Committee any longer than is required to give full, proper and thorough scrutiny of the Bill.
Amendment No. 22, which would remove ''detect'' from the definition of speed assessment equipment detection devices, would enable drivers to continue to fit or carry in their vehicles speed assessment equipment detectors, which warn them whenever they are in the vicinity of any police speed enforcement equipment. It is vital and legitimate police activity to undertake effective speed enforcement, including enforcement away from the published camera sites, to identify and prosecute people who speed. There may be occasions when the police, probably acting on pressure from residents in a local area, set up a mobile site for a period of time to catch the very boy racers that the hon. Member for Christchurch referred to. They may set it up at certain times of the week when those people are proving a problem. Often the sites are in villages and country areas, but sometimes they are
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in towns. The seafront in Teignbridge is one area. I know that Plymouth Hoe is a famous racing spot on a Saturday night.
The last thing that we want is to do as the hon. Gentleman suggests and give those boy racers some equipment that can spot the police so that they can moderate their behaviour on that occasion only. They would be able to detect the presence of the mobile cameras. That sounds like a recipe for helping those boy racers. I do not know whether he has experienced what I am describing in his constituency. If he has, he will know that there is public outrage at the dangers, the noise and everything else that goes with the activity.
Mr. Chope: I did not refer to boy racers, but if I were to do so, I would also refer to girl racers because the Minister is being unduly sexist in thinking that it is only the male fraternity who break the speed limit.
Mr. Jamieson: I was using a generic term. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say there may be males or females behind the wheel, although I have to say that most of the time those who are involved in such activities are males and tend to be quite young.
There are three levels at which equipment in a vehicle can operate in regard to speed cameras. The first involves any piece of equipment that blocks or in some way jams the signal from the camera. The right hon. Member for East Yorkshire said that there was an unanswerable case for a ban in that respect. We seem to be totally agreed on that. He asked whether that equipment was illegal. There was some doubt about that, but it has been cleared up. I was determined that we should put that beyond doubt in the Bill. We will make that equipment illegal so that people cannot use it.
The next level is those devices that will detect a camera and decide whether it is operational. A lot of the time the cameras do not have film in them. Sometimes the radar device that flashes the light is not operating, and sometimes the cameras are not doing anything at all and are completely benign. Those cameras still have a deterrent effect on people because there is always the chance that they may get caught, so they slow down. If they have a device that detects whether a fixed camera is in operation, they can speed past it with impunity. They know with a high degree of certainty that they can carry on speeding at sites where there are known high levels of death and injury because those are the only places that the fixed sites can be put. Is the hon. Member for Christchurch saying that people who can afford to put such devices in their car should do so? Surely they must have only one motive in mind: that of exceeding the speed limit. That is the only motive there could be for putting in a device that detects whether speed cameras are operational. They want to exceed the speed limit at a site where casualties are very high.
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that such people should be allowed to have detectors in their vehicles? According to the thrust of his amendment, I am afraid that he is saying that. I do not agree. Those devices should not be permitted for fixed sites that are used in
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partnership programmes, or for those sites that the police operate outside partnership agreements for proper law enforcement purposes. People should not be able to buy a device that prevents the police from doing the job that local communities want them to do.
The third level of apparatus tells a person where the sites are. People can interrogate a website to find out where the sites are, and many local authorities publish those details clearly. My local police station has a big map with every single one marked on it. I have no difficulty with people knowing where the cameras are, because that shows people where they need to slow down. They do not need a detector device to tell them they are turned on; they just need to slow down at those sites. The camera is not only telling people that they might get caught, but showing them a place where speeding causes death and injury, so that they should be particularly mindful of their speed.
All of us agree that the device that blocks a signal should be outlawed. The hon. Member for Christchurch thinks that some people should get away with it at certain sites, but I disagree. The amendment from the Liberal Democrats was a probing one, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said. I hope that he can see the reason why we have no problem with people knowing where the sites are, but we have a problem with people being able to detect whether they are operational. There is a world of difference between the two positions.
The hon. Member for Christchurch talked about his road angel. I thought that the angels were there to save us. It seems that those angels save people only from fines; they do not save drivers or other people from death and injury. That is not a very useful sort of angel: I would call it a road devil. I hope that has been a helpful debate, and I ask the Committee to resist the amendment.
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