Draft Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) (Amendment) Regulations 2005
Fifth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation
Tuesday 7 December 2004
[Mr. Eric Forth in the Chair]
Draft Motor Vehicles (Seat Belts) (Amendment) Regulations 2005
9.55 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Motor Vehicles (Seat Belts) (Amendment) Regulations 2005.
What a pleasure it is to sit under your chairmanship this morning, Mr. Forth. I have spent many happy hours with you in Committee, but I think that this is the first time under the careful eye of your chairmanship.
These regulations are about saving lives and reducing casualties. They amend existing regulations, which provide for an exemption from compulsory seat belt wearing while delivering or collecting, to clarify when the exemption applies and to make it easier to enforce. They also make two minor changes to bring the regulations up to date.
At present, section 14 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires that the seat belt wearing regulations provide an exemption for those using goods vehicles while
''engaged in making local rounds of deliveries''.
That exemption has been part of the seat belt wearing legislation since seat belt wearing in the front seats of cars and vans became compulsory in 1983. The aim was to exempt those who needed to make frequent stops while engaged in making local deliveries or collections. Parliament recognised at that time that the inconvenience to those travelling very short distances between stops, such as those providing doorstep milk deliveries and refuse collectors, outweighed the benefits of using seat belts. However, the legislation provides no definition of ''local rounds of deliveries''.
Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con): Before the Minister gets on to that, can he tell us what information he has about the number of drivers who have been injured as a result of the exemption to which he refers?
Mr. Jamieson: We have an estimate from the Transport Research Laboratory that this could save a substantial number of casualties and injuries. We know of the seat belt wearing frequency among drivers of vans. We also know that those who are at work are about 50 per cent. more likely to have an accident while driving in connection with their work. We have a fair amount of data relating to people at work, particularly driving vans or cars. I can give later TRL's estimates of the number of casualties that could be saved by the order.
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Over the years, this lack of clarity has resulted in many van and goods vehicle users—and some employers—mistakenly believing that a general ''trade'' exemption applies to any delivery, over any distance. As a consequence, too many of them do not use their seat belts at all. Surveys carried out on behalf of the Department show that the seat belt wearing rate for van drivers is around 70 per cent. and that for their passengers around 57 per cent., which is much lower than the rates of over 90 per cent. seen in the front seats of cars. We want to change this and increase seat belt use by goods vehicle users. Therefore, in accordance with section 110 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, new regulations must now express the exemption as a maximum distance that may be travelled before a seat belt has to be worn.
The Department undertook public consultation in 2003 on what the prescribed distance should be, suggesting that it should be either 10 m or 20 m, but inviting views on other distances. There were 64 responses from individuals, businesses, trade associations and the police. They were all carefully considered. Some wanted no exemption at all while others wanted a significantly greater distance than had been proposed in the consultation document. In the light of all the representations that we received, it was decided that the distance to be specified in the regulations should be 50 m. That was announced in the Department's decision letter of 30 September 2004. A summary of the responses to the consultation and a list of those who had responded and a regulatory impact assessment have also been made available.
We believe that the distance of 50 m provides sufficient flexibility for the majority of vehicle users to undertake their tasks without serious inconvenience. Modern seat belts are considerably easier to use than those available when seat belt wearing became compulsory and we believe that it will not be difficult or unreasonable for users to comply with the new requirement. However, the regulatory impact assessment acknowledges that some vehicle users, who do not currently wear seat belts, will have to do so in future.
The time spent undoing and doing up seat belts will increase journey times and this may have cost implications. In some cases I suspect that this will be because the existing exemption has been interpreted too widely, and what is now being required more correctly reflects the intention of the original legislation. We do not believe that the change will seriously inconvenience those undertaking genuine door-to-door operations. The change is incorporated in regulation 2(2) of the draft regulations, which will replace the equivalent regulation in the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) Regulations 1993.
We have also taken the opportunity to make two minor technical amendments to the 1993 regulations. We will replace references to the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1987, which have been revoked, with references to the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations 1999. Regulations 2(3) and (4) of the draft regulations before us make those changes.
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As I have said, the primary aim of these regulations is to save lives and reduce casualties. We estimate that if seat belt wearing rates among drivers and passengers in vans increase to the levels seen in cars—here is the estimate that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) wanted to hear—some 20 fatalities, 240 serious casualties and 1,000 slight injuries could be prevented each year. Further casualty savings in heavy goods vehicles are likely, but cannot be calculated because of the difficulties of observing seat belt wearing rates in the cabs of large vehicles.
Subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament, the regulations are scheduled to come into force on 1 March 2005. My Department will use the time between approval and implementation to make sure that the delivery industry is aware of the change.
Mr. Chope: How much money will be spent on promoting the change?
Mr. Jamieson: We have not anticipated its being a large amount. We will write back to those involved in the consultation and will contact the appropriate trade press, but that will involve a very modest expenditure, which will come under the Department's budget.
The regulations implement the new provisions of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 while maintaining the spirit of the original legislation. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
10.2 am
Mr. Chope: It is a pleasure to serve under your august chairmanship, Mr. Forth.
We feel that, through the draft regulations, the Government are again penalising a small group because they cannot enforce the law in respect of a larger group. The people who will suffer as a result are those engaged in genuine door-to-door deliveries. They are effectively being made the scapegoats for the fact that the Government cannot enforce the existing seat belt wearing laws in relation to the mass of van drivers.
The figures of 70 and 50 per cent. that the Minister gave for the incidence of seat belt wearing among those who drive, or travel in the front seats of, vans give the lie to his suggestion that the only purpose of the regulations is to deal with delivery drivers. The problem is that many van drivers who are not engaged in deliveries are not wearing seat belts.
The Transport Research Laboratory has come up with a figure of 20 for the number of deaths that will be saved each year as a result of the measure. That is not 20 deaths among people currently engaged in door-to-door deliveries in vans who are not wearing seat belts; it is among the mass of van drivers, who are going on long-distance journeys and not wearing seat belts. As that is the mischief that the Government are trying to address—the problem of those driving or sitting in the passenger seat of vans travelling long distances who ignore the seat belt laws—is it not a bit draconian to bring in regulations that will effectively penalise van drivers engaged in short delivery rounds?
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The figure of 50 m—I do not know how that will be enforced—is higher than the figure originally proposed by the Government. However, it ignores the reality that, for people like the postman, stops will sometimes be less than 50 m apart and sometimes more. It will be difficult to start enforcing the seat belt laws against the postman who happens to have some delivery stops 70 m apart when most of them are only 30 m apart. Will he have to wear his seat belt every time, or will he have to work out how far it is between one house and the next? Is it not a disproportionately large burden to place on those engaged in such delivery activities? And it is being placed on them because the Government have failed to enforce the law in respect of other van drivers. I think of the mass of what are colloquially known as white-van drivers, many of whom drive that excellent van, the Ford Transit, which is the only van of British manufacture.
Mr. Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab): Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that LDV in Birmingham is the only British manufacturer of vans? They are good vans, and they would be good especially for the Post Office.
Mr. Chope: It has always been my contention that we do not get enough participation from Government Back Benchers in our Committees. I designed my remarks deliberately to ensure that the hon. Gentleman was able to participate, and put his remarks on the record.
Regardless of whether the van is manufactured in Birmingham or in Southampton, we know that there is too much disregard for the law among the mass of van drivers. I am not sure that a draconian tightening of the regulations in relation to those van drivers who are engaged in genuine door-to-door deliveries is the right way to deal with the problem.
I come back to the question that I asked the Minister in an intervention at the outset. What saving in lives will result from van drivers having to wear seat belts between deliveries to places between 50 m and 100 m apart, compared with not having to wear seat belts? The suggestion seems to be that when driving more than 50 m or 100 m between deliveries they will build up an enormous amount of speed, but the Government have produced no evidence of van drivers engaged in door-to-door deliveries being killed or injured in an accident as a result of not wearing seat belts while engaged in that delivery process.
The whole justification for the measure is centred around the fact that many van drivers engaged in long-distance driving do not wear seat belts and thus run an increased risk of death or injury if involved in an accident. I hope that the Minister will address my concern, which is expressed on behalf of the tens of thousands engaged in our door-to-door deliver services. Some will find themselves on the wrong side of the law, and Royal Mail drivers will probably suffer most.
We know that milk floats are not fitted with seat belts so that is not an issue. However, in an increasingly pressurised society, is it reasonable that the Government should introduce regulations that will
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penalise those going about their daily business when there is no safety benefit to be gained? The safety benefit will arise only because the Government will more easily be able to enforce the law in relation to those who do not currently comply with the law.
We have considerable reservations about the measure. We believe that the Government could effectively target those who risk their life by not wearing seat belts when they should, while giving a genuine exemption to those who are engaged in making short-distance deliveries. The arbitrary figure of 50 m is expressed in language that many delivery drivers will not understand, and it is inconsistent with the fact that we use imperial measurements in our road traffic law. When driving, we talk about distances in miles and of so many miles per hour. Why should we suddenly introduce the concept of metres rather than yards? I am disappointed that the Government have not said, ''We'll give it 100 yards or so between delivery points, and then we'll see what we can do.''
Finally, how are we to be sure whether somebody has put on a seat belt to make a delivery between two points 75 yd apart? Who is going to enforce that? How would the person ever be brought to book and if he were, would it be reasonable to penalise him for so behaving? Is not the Minister, in his desperation to try to simplify the law so that it is easier to impose more fixed penalties, in danger of creating injustices, albeit for a small minority of people, as a result of the regulations?
