Political Commentary
Page 64
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By JANUS
A BITTER PILL
LIKE the patient who argues interminably over the short but unpleasant duty of taking a pill, Parliament have the not wholly admirable habit, when faced with a decision they do not like but for which they can see no alternative, of making a protracted meal out of what they could easily swallow in one gulp. The Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Bill is a measure of which nobody can feel proud. It has been forced upon the Government because they are not building, and for some time to come will not be able to build, enough roads to keep pace with the increasing volume of traffic.
The accident figures for the Easter holidays show more than any amount of argument the need for immediate action. The number of road deaths and injuries each year is increasing at an even more rapid rate than the number of vehicles, and congestion spreads like a disease. Parliament know this and appreciate the urgency. All the same, they will not allow the Bill to pass through the committee stage or the later stages without ample discussion. The Second Reading set the pattern by lasting for nearly seven hours.
It will be difficult in the end to remember what all the argument was about. The main items can be extracted from the Bill fairly easily. There are to be traffic wardens appointed to help in the control and regulation of traffic and vehicles and in the enforcement of the law. A ticket system is proposed under which drivers will have the option of paying a standard penalty for certain traffic offences as an alternative to being prosecuted.
The Minister of Transport is to have increased powers to deal with traffic offences in London. Local authorities will be given an extension of their powers to provide parking places off the highway. Regulations that may be made under the Bill if it is finally passed may involve control over pedestrians; certification or licensing of vehicles entitled to park in a particular street; and the use of the parking-disc system.
Too Much Talk
All these things are needed, or at least power should be given to put them into force where the circumstances warrant it. If anybody imagines that the evident necessity disposes of the matter and that Parliament should require very little time in which to consider the Bill, he obviously does not know his M.P.s. The Second Reading was diversified as well as prolonged. By the end of the day the M.P.s taking part had contrived to say something about almost every provision in the Bill, and had touched upon a good many other points besides, from integration and German canals to dogs and American breathalyzers.
One may expect that the Act that finally reaches the Statute Book will not be greatly different from the original Bill. The real danger is that the welter of words may bring about a change in the attitude that ought to be adopted towards all legislation of this sort. The Bill is an emergency measure reflecting the need for prompt and drastic action. The provisions that it makes, and the regulations that will no doubt arise from it when it becomes an Act, are none of them genuine cures for the traffic problem. They are palliatives only.
Parliament and the public must on no account accept them as permanent. The proper solution of the traffic problem begins with the provision of an adequate system of roads. This is a fact that may too easily be forgotten. It would have been helpful to have had a reassurance on co6 this point during the Second Reading, but nobody thought fit to demand or to give one.
As a poor substitute there were some curious digressions. No less a person than Mr. Geoffrey Wilson took the opportunity to put right some imaginary misconceptions about road finance. The drastic improvements, which he agreed were needed, had nothing to do, he went on, with the fact that the amount of money being spent on roads might not equal the amount collected in taxation from motorists.
He laboured the point almost as if he were speaking_to a Treasury brief. In the early days of the car the roads were dusty; they had to be improved although the cars themselves were few in number. Therefore Lloyd George was right in 1909 to allocate all the money obtained from motorists by special taxation to the alteration of _road surfaces for their peculiar benefit. Now that nearly everybody is a motorist, the case is somehow different, according to Mr. Wilson. "There is really no more reason for saying that all money collected from motor taxation should be spent on the roads than there is for saying that all the money collected from the beer duty should be spent on the pubs."
Irrelevant Argument
Mr. Wilson's argument seems irrelevant, not merely to the Bill, but to the road problem as a whole. The point of view that he attacks is not widely held, although it is true that a reflex action very much like it takes plabe in the case of certain veterans whenever they hear the names of Lloyd George and Winston Churchill mentioned together. The two architects of victory are then remembered primarily as the creator and the destroyer of the Road Fund.
If Mr. Wilson imagined, as apparently he did, that he was appeasing the road user, and particularly the commercial-vehicle operator, it is as well that he should be disabused. Generally speaking the attitude of the road user is clear enough. He sees no justification for the excessively heavy taxation he now has to pay, and cannot accept the comparison with the tax on items such as beer. He believes that much more money should be spent on roads, and regards as an additional reason that the cost would easily be met twice over out of revenue.
Nothing during the discussion in the House of Commons helped to decide whether the Bill is directed more towards the car owner or the commercial-vehicle user. Presumably the community as a whole is expected to benefit, but a number of M.P.s took the opportunity to attack the goods operator and particularly the carrier of heavy loads. Mr. A. C. Manuel was particularly forthright. He spoke of huge loads conveyed in vans "of an appalling size." The driver behind such a vehicle could not see past it. Mr. Manuel also had a grouse about the unloading of vehicles in front of business premises. This often disturbed the flow of pedestrians, whO were "very annoyed and complained bitterly."
Another M.P. wished to designate certain streets as closed to heavy transport unless they happened to be delivering goods in the area. Mr. George Darling wanted to ban the commercial operator who had no proper premises and parking places for his vehicle. It was left to Mr. Charles Pannell to pay tribute to the long-distance driver. "If everyone was as well-disciplined as he is, there would be a far smaller' toll of road accidents."