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Mrs. Siân C. James (Swansea, East) (Lab): In Wales we have successfully trialled the 20 mph speed outside schools. I am currently campaigning hard on behalf of the community at Manselton primary school in Swansea. There has been a serious accident outside the school, and we must put schoolchildren's safety first. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that that is paramount in any circumstances.
Mr. Knight: I do agree. I hope that in addition, the hon. Lady will agree with me that to have a 20 mph speed limit in force during the six or eight weeks when a school is on holiday is not the way to proceed. We should focus the speed limit on when children are likely to want to cross the highway. That will send a message to the driver that he is approaching the school at a dangerous time and should slow down.
Traffic calming is something else that we could address during the passage of the Bill. I would like the Government to announce that it is their policy to phase out speed humps, which are widely discredited. I think that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) introduced a 10-minute rule Bill on that matter fairly recently. Chicanes, build-outs and electronic warning signs all have their place, but speed humps are a menace and are increasingly seen as such.
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I would like to share with the House a report in The Daily Telegraph on 8 October last year. Under the headline, "Bus passenger paralysed by speed bump", the article said:
"A bus passenger has been paralysed after damaging his spine as the vehicle drove over a speed bump.
Neil Price, 53, an electrical retailer, of Kendal, Cumbria, was travelling on a Stagecoach bus in Dalton-in-Furness. He is now in the Royal Preston Hospital with two broken vertebrae and a damaged spinal cord. Doctors have told him it will be two or three weeks before they know whether he will walk again."
There is also an article that I managed to pick up off the internet, so I am not sure that the named author is the actual author, but it reinforces the point. Under the headline "Speed Humps are a Curse", it reinforces the point:
Paramedics are warning that speed humps are killing hundreds of people a year by increasing ambulance response times."
It goes on to quote the chairman of the London Ambulance Service as saying that more lives are lost through delays caused by speed humps and other measures than are saved by them.
"Emergency services chiefs have also criticised Councils for introducing speed humps without any apparent consideration of their adverse effects. Two firefighters in America suffered spinal injuries in separate incidents when they hit their heads on the cab roof as their vehicle went over a hump.
Speed humps are by far the worst form of traffic calming because they damage vehicle suspension systems and are also dangerous for those travelling in an ambulance who may have spinal or other injuries . . . Austrian researchers found that exhaust pollution can soar tenfold as drivers accelerate away from humps.
The article concludes with a comment by an RAC spokesman:
"About six months after the humps are installed, people generally come back and say that it has caused problems with the amount of noise . . . and pollution. A few months after these humps are introduced, most people want to get rid of them".
Given the advent of new technologies, I hope that Ministers will look into different ways of calming traffic. A number of villages in my constituency have the benefit of flashing electronic signs, some of which are powered by wind; they have a fan on top that recharges the batteries. They are excellent and shock motorists when they flash. Many motorists do not know that they are there, and to judge by what I have observed from the pavement as they approach them, they seem to have the desired deterrent effect without the negative effects of speed humps.
Planning guidance should also be regarded as relevant to road safety. There are far too many congested roads and vehicles parked on pavements and blocking access points, thereby causing delay and holding up emergency vehicles. During my visit to Leicester, to which I referred earlier, I read in the excellent Leicester Mercury that Blaby district council is going to lay down "concrete grass". It is setting aside
"£20,000 to expand parking areas . . . by putting down a surface of concrete with holes through which grass can grow.
The council said the scheme was in response to problems with housing developments built without adequate parking facilities or garage space."
It is ridiculous in this day and age that planners are allowing developers to build houses without any off-street accommodation for the motor car. People do not need a triple, double or even single garage for their car; all that they need is a piece of land 18 ft x 6 ft and a dropped kerb. That would reduce road congestion and eliminate the danger that pedestrians face as they negotiate parked cars with two wheels on the pavement. Planners ought to be telling developers, "Unless you make provision for the motor car, you won't get your planning permission." I hope that the Minister will speak to his colleagues in another Department and see whether they can be sold on this idea, which would make a huge difference.
My final point about road safety and matters outwith the Bill concerns British summer time. It about time we ended the annual ritual of putting our clocks back every October, mainly to appease a handful of Scots. The evidence in favour of such a change is overwhelming.
Mr. Knight: I guess that I asked for that. Okay, I give way.
Mr. MacNeil: As one of the handful of Scots to whom the right hon. Gentleman alludes, I in part agree with him. It seems strange at times that the clock is changed six or seven weeks before mid-winter, and back again about 15 weeks after mid-winter. I still want the changing of the clocks, but perhaps the period could be altered.
Mr. Knight: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that, and I shall answer his point in a moment.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents estimates that between 500 and 2,500 lives could be saved each year if we remained on British summer time. Our colleagues north of the border now have their own Parliament, but I understand that they have not been given the power to set their own time zone. I would happily vote for Scots to have the ability to set their own time zone, and for us to maintain British summer time 12 months a year in England and Wales, in the interests not only of road safety but of tourism. I represent an area that includes the beautiful town of Bridlington. Lighter evenings encourage tourism and reduce energy costs, because there is a better matching of waking hours and daylight hours. We should introduce such a change.
As you may have gathered from my remarks, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in my view the Bill is not the complete answer to improving road safety, but it is a small step. I hope that the Minister will show us in Committee that he is willing not just to take one small step, but to take on board some of the other suggestions made today, and that he is willing to turn that small step into a journey forwards in the interests of road safety. If he does that, this will indeed be a Bill worthy of its name.
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3.54 pm
Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): Road safety is a policy area that has benefited immeasurably from cross-party consensus for many years. For decades, Labour and Conservative Governments have adopted the approach of long-term strategy tied to demanding targets for casualty reduction. Over that time, there has been great success in achieving those targets. It is remarkable that we have reduced in absolute terms the numbers of people killed or seriously injured on our roads over two decades in which the amount of traffic on our roads has continued to grow every year. As policy makers, we are entitled to congratulate ourselves on some success, but we need to ponder the amount of death and carnage still seen on our roads. More than 3,000 lives are lost every year, with 10 times that number seriously injured. We are entitled to say that we have had successes and that our policy works, but more remains to be done. That is why we are debating a new Road Safety Bill today.
We are keen, these days, on making decisions based on evidence. There is evidence that adding some measures to the Bill would save more lives. The first was mentioned by the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight). Changing the clocks—our time pieces, not the odometers on our cars—twice a year may be a wider issue than can be addressed by a road safety Bill, but the Transport Research Laboratory estimated in 1999 that having lighter evenings would save some 100 lives and prevent 2,000 serious and other injuries a year.
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