Maximum penalty for dangerous vehicles to be reviewed with Road Safety Bill
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They would also be able to incorporate the higher braking standard which her working party had been studying and on which she hoped to issue new regulations shortly.
It would not be possible to introduce the new scheme all at once, They might, at the outset, be able to deal with only those features of a vehicle which were relevant to its plated weight—for example the brakes—bringing in other features of vehicle design step by step. She hoped the scheme would be got under way by the end of 1969 when it was planned to have completed the plating of all existing vehicles.
"All this is a big contribution to road safety, but by itself it is not enough", declared Mrs. Castle. "There is no substitute for systematic inspection and maintenance of their vehicles by the operators themselves."
She fully admitted that some operators provided adequately for this. But the RHA and the TRTA would be the first to agree that a substantial proportion of operators did not. The Associations had done all they could to impress their members with the need for improving the standards in the industry.
But they were to a large extent preaching to the converted, and what was needed was Government action to compel those who would not listen to come into line.
When she mentioned special licences and tests for drivers of heavy goods vehicles, Mrs. Castle said the majority of these drivers had maintained high standards and had built up a good reputation for themselves and their industry. But there was a minority which had let the industry down.
Besides that, heavy goods vehicles were developing more and more sophisticated control systems and these clearly demanded a more advanced and more stringest test than the learner-driver test, which was all that was needed at present.
"Our aim is not to persecute the motorist or the road haulier. Our aim is to encourage a new sense of our responsibility to each other when we use what is, after all, a potential instrument of death or injury. The Government must sustain and reinforce the good social behaviour of the majority."
In a debate dominated by the new moves against the drunken driver, few of the later speakers had much to say about road haulage.
One who did was Mr. Julian Snow (Lab., Lichfield and Tamworth) who said that the ultimate sanction against people who drove lorries or caused them to be driven when they were defective and unsafe was the revocation of the licence to operate road haulage fleets or vehicles.
The figures in the annual reports of the licensing authorities showed a progressive but minimal increase in immediate prohibitions.
But the other sanction, the revocation of the licence was not being applied often enough.
His chief complaint against the existing law, and certain provisions of the new Bill, was that the penalties for having a defective lorry on the road were wholly derisory. The Bill provided no sort of alteration of penalty for this offence, which remained at £50.
The Liberal spokesman on transport, Mr. Peter 13essell, welcomed the Bill, but said that about 100 new weighbridges were wholly inadequate.
He also mentioned overhanging loads, as a cause of mishaps. They were a dangerous hazard, and he hoped that provision would be made to make them illegal.
Mr. R. W. Brown (Lab., Shoreditch and Finsbury) said that one road safety problem could be solved if we could ensure that before a licence was granted for a goods vehicle the owner had to show that he had a garage for it.
This would immediately take care of one of the big problems in conurbations, when these vehicles were parked unlit in side roads, often two abreast. The Minister had to face this problem.
Mr. Graham Page (Tory, Crosby) raised the matter of dangerous, chemical loads, which neither the Home Secretary nor the Minister of Transport had dealt with over many years. There should be proper regulations, said Mr. Page.
Winding up for the Opposition, Mr. Peter Thorneycroft echoed the words of Sir Martin Redmayne. who had opened for the Conservatives apart from some committee points there was virtually complete agreement about the part of the Bill concerned with road haulage.
Mr. Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary, told Mr. Snow that the Government agreed there were some circumstances in which the present maximum penalties for owners of dangerous vehicles seemed inadequate.
"We shall consider, before the Committee stage, how any changes might best be made."