Road Transport Topics
Page 50
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In Parliament
MULTITUDINOUS MOTORING OFFENCES. •
ARETURN, issued by the Home Office to the House of Commons, showing the number of offences relating to motor vehicles in England and Wales, is remarkable for the range and variety of the breaches of the law to which drivers can be subject. There are 23.
Apart from the better-known statutory regulations, the offences include leaving a motor vehicle in a dangerous position, obstruction of the road, offences in connection with registration and identification marks, equipment and maintenance of brakes, noise in silence zones, and using or allowing the use of a vehicle with defective tyres dangerously loaded, or without driving mirror, horn, or other warning instrument, weight or speed painted on the vehicle, or without proper mudguards.
HALF-MILLION OFFENCES IN 1935.
DURING 1935 the total number of offences was 518,240, involving 449,653 persons. Of these, 118,125, affecting 97,203 individuals, were dealt with by written warning from the police. There were 400,115 offences, involving 352,450 defendants, dealt with by prosecution.
Of charges withdrawn, there were 21,696, affecting 12,617 persons. Sentences of imprisonment without option of a fine were imposed in respect of 456 cases on 355 persons. The number of people fined was 310,789.
Drivers who had their licences suspended numbered 8,291, whilst 69,068 licences were endorsed, but not suspended. The total amount of fines imposed, excluding costs, was £385,774 10s. ld.
B40
By Our Special Parliamentary Correspondent
COMMERCIAL-VEHICLE BREACHES.
THERE were 40 cases of excessive 1 weight on bridges, in which were imposed 37 convictions with fines amounting to £53 Ss. Other weightlimit offences numbered 2,420, of which 309 were dealt with by written warning and 2,111 by prosecution on summons, 127 being withdrawn and 216 dismissed. The convictions involved fines totalling £3,005 12s. 7W There were 1,963 cases of vehicles dangerously loaded (not necessarily all commercial vehicles) involving 1,305 convictions and £1,173 6s. 10d. in fines. Cases of vehicles without weight or speed painted on them amounted to 620, in which there were 268 convictions, involving £.227 Is. 10d. in lines.
The classified offences with the largest figures were 80,010 cases of vehicles of all classes exceeding the speed-limit in built-up areas; 35,635 breaches of the speed-limit regulations by goods vehicles; 30,574 cases of careless driving; 31,427 of failing to stop at traffic signal; and 55,786 of obstruc
tion on highway or road; 55,330 lighting offences; and 41,079 " other offences relating to motor vehicles."
FUTURE OF GRANTS FOR ROAD SCHEMES.
THE Minister of Transport, like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has given an assurance that the scheme for diverting the Road Fund to the Exchequer will not have any adverse effect on the new road schemes, for which grants have been approved. That some M.P.s arc sceptical was evident when Mr. Macquiston put the following inquiry, which was left unanswered: " Of what value is that undertaking, seeing that an undertaking was given when the Road Fund was instituted, that it would be for the roads? "
A number of amendments to the Finance Bill is to be proposed by members of the Parliamentary Road Group with the object of making statutorily certain that the taxes paid by motorists shall be utilized for the roads, no less in future than in the past.
ROAD CONSTRUCTION SCHEMES: ESTIMATED COST.
THE total estimated cost of schemes, included in the Five-Year Programme submitted by highway authorities up to April 30, was £139,729,000. The cost of schemes approved for grant in the first year (1935-36) was :£26,650,000, in respect of which payments amounting to £1,654,323 were made out of the Road Fund for accounts actually presented. It is estimated that the corresponding figure for this year will be £4,820,000.
The lowest and highest rates of grant are 33* per cent. and 85 per cent.
respectively. In addition, the Road Fund is to bear the entire cost of road works, in the Crofter Counties of Scotland, estimated at £4,250,000.
The programme exceeds in magnitude any previously submitted, and at this stage, according to the Minister of Transport, to vary the grants on which it was based, far from accelerating, would, by creating indecision, retard progress.