Obstruction Outside Traffic Wardens' Jurisdiction
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BY OUR PARLIAMENTARY CORRESPONDENT LORRY and other drivers cannot be charged with obstruction by the new traffic wardens. Mr. David Renton, Joint Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, said the wardens would not have power to make this charge when they started work later in the year. He was speaking at the third sitting of the House of Commons standing committee examining the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Bill.
"Cases of offences of obstruction can be quite serious," he said. "They can lead to conflict between the police and the motorist perhaps more easily than can ordinary parking offences, and until we have the traffic-warden system well under way, it may not be wise to place upon the wardens the burden of dealing with cases of obstruction."
Precise regulations would be made by the Home Secretary later.
Worried About Lorry Drivers Mr. Renton's statement was made in answer to Mr. Robert Mellish, one of the Opposition's spokesmen on traffic problems. "I am unhappy about the position of those legitimately earning their living by driving lorries, who may sometimes obstruct a roadway for a short period and who will find themselves guilty of an offence under this Bill," he said.
Sir Richard Nugent, former Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, also supported the decision to exclude obstruction from the range of offences with which traffic wardens can deal.
M.P.s expressed many other misgivings about the future activities of traffic wardens.
"Many people feel that there may well be, in the first year alone after the Bill becomes an Act, half a million or even a million tickets imposed upon motorists," said Mr. Mellish.
Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, who leads for the Labour Party on transport problems, asked whether it was sensible En limit the wardens' powers to the trifling powers foreshadowed by the Government.
Present Pledges Not Valid
"I do not believe any pledge given on this Bill can possibly stand up to the pressure of motor vehicles coming on to our roads in the near future," he observed.
"According to the statistics available, there will be 50 per cent. more vehicles on the roads within the next four or five years, and the problem of traffic control, road safety, traffic direction and enforcement of traffic laws will become so big that I believe that in a matter of months after the first regulations are made, the Home Secretary will come back and ask for greater powers, as he is entitled to do."
Mr. Wedgwood Benn reinforced his point by saying that the number of
police officers per motor vehicle was now dropping as fast as the number of vehicles increased.
"I suspect that we are approaching a degree of under-policing so serious as to force the Home Secretary to act.. As the Home Secretary he is wholly responsible for the problem. He will have to consider how he is to tackle the matter, and what use he is to make of his powers."
The powers that traffic wardens are to have for the time being were defined by Mr. Renton as four:
(I) He can give an informal warning. He has all the rights of a citizen to warn another citizen.
(2) He may summon a constable if he thinks it is necessary.
(3) He may decide to serve a ticket notice.
(4) He may make a note of the facts of the incident with a view to reporting it, and the police will then consider, on the basis of the traffic warden's note, whether the case is a fit one for a formal caution or a summons.
Mr. Renton said that under a previous Act, any person already had power to ask for names and addresses when there had been injury and accident, and traffic wardens would not be excluded from that power.
The debate confirmed the feelings of many M.P.s that the wardens' functions would go well beyond the feW parking and lighting offences relating to stationary vehicles to which it was at first thought they would be restricted.
That led Mr. Frank McLeavy (Lab., Bradford East) to stress the need for quality in the selection of the wardens.
Mr. William Wells, Q.C. (Lab., Walsall North), urged the need for careful train
ing. The scope of the traffic wardens' work in taking evidence after road accidents is, in the nature of the case, bound to increase," he said. "Therefore, it is most important that very careful instructions should be given to them about the circumstances in which they, like other citizens, exercise the power of arrest, and can ask for names and addresses. No doubt at all should be left in the public mind, even at these earliest stages, about just what the powers of traffic wardens are to be."
Changes 11 Needed
Mr. Ernest Marples, Minister of Transport, said the Government would not hesitate to make changes as the new .scheme proceeded.
"Traffic is empirical," he said. "One can never say whether whai one does is the right thing. One has largely to rely on trial and error and when one makes regulations for a particular street, they might have precisely the opposite effect to that intended."
Mr. Marples thought the estimate of half a million tickets was exaggerated. What the Government wanted was to get . the traffic moving, and regulate long-term parking by meters.
Mr. Renton, on Tuesday, gave news that the first corps of traffic wardens would number about 100 men and would be confined to London. "The police authorities outside London do not wish to try this experiment until they see how the London Police Commissioner manages to make it work," he explained.
Mr. Renton said that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner had proposed, and the Home Secretary was prepared to approve, that wardens should wear a uniform similar to that of the civilian police drivers.
Consultation Promised Before regulations were made under the Bill, there would he consultations with police authorities and chief constables.
Mr. Wedgwood Benn stood up for the rights of other bodies to be heard and insisted on a full Parliamentary debate before the regulations became effective. "Consultation is not a substitute for Parliamentary debates," he declared. If wardens were to be a success, they must be acceptable to the people with whom they were going to work.
Mr. Renton was not able to meet Mr. Berm's request for a long debate. He urged the need for speed, because he foresaw bigger and more tangled traffic jams in London next Christmas.
Mr. Mellish sharply rebuked Mr. Marples for his statement on Monday that the pink zone was a big bluff.
"The Minister of Transport holds a job of the highest authority," he said. "Sometimes I wonder if he realizes just how important his job is. It is a most terrifying thing that the Minister can admit that the pink zone he introduced last Christmas was, in fact, just a bit of bluff. Some of us are wondering whether these traffic wardens are bluff as welt."