"If Employers are Innocent Fines Will be Light"
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By Our Parliamentary Correspondent
AN attempt to revise the 1933 Act, to prevent employers being held responsible for inaccurate driving records, failed when it was made in the Standing Committee on the Road Traffic Bill in the House of Commons on Thursday of last week.
Mr. G. Wilson (Con., Truro) moved a new clause to provide that it should be a defence to prove that the holder of a licence took all 'reasonable steps to ensure compliance with the provisions of Section 16 of the Act, and that the offence was committed withouthis knowledge.
Mr. Wilson urged that there had been frequent cases in which employers had been convicted in circumstances when no reasonable man would suppose the employer was to blame. He cited a case at Manchester last year when three summonses were taken out against an employer for permitting a driver to work for more than 11 hours, and for failing to keep records on two successive days.
Fraudulent Claim
The driver had been sent from Old Trafford to West Bromwich and had telephoned his employer to say that he could not get back and was staying the night in Newcastle. Then, for purposes of fraud, he went back, spent the night at home, and claimed the subsistence allowance, which he proposed to put in his own pocket. The employer was fined on two of the three charges on that occasion.
"Cases like that," said Mr. Wilson, "obviously create a bad feeling; a feeling among the employers that it does not matter what they do since they are liable to be prosecuted in any case."
Mr. H. Molson, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, replied that where an employer had obviously done his best to ensure the obedience of his employees to the law, "the fine Will be light." If the clause were carried, he said, there would be a great tendency for employers to be less rigorous in applying discipline.
"Extraordinary Principle" Mr. Graham Page (Con., Crosby) said: "What an extraordinary principle that it does not matter if a man has a conviction recorded against him because the fines are light. The important thing to large corporations is not the size of the fine but the fact that there is a con4viction against them."
Mr. Wilson withdrew his clause, saying that the damage was not the amount of the fine but the fact that it was not an incentive to the employer to enforce the law.
Mr. H. Watkinson, Minister of Transport, announced that on the report stage the Government would bring forward a new clause dealing with vehicle testing. (Throughout he spoke of "vehicles" A18 and not "cars.") He wished to be able to use local authority or Government stations or private garages, as seemed the most expedient. The clause would give him wide powers.
The Government undertook to examine the possibility of issuing driving licences valid for three years.
When the committee resumed on Tuesday, an assurance that the Government would look again at the automatic disqualification for insurance offences under the Road Traffic Act was given in reply to new clauses moved by Mr. Ronald Bell (Con., Buckingham S.).
Mr. Bell sought to give courts a discretion whether to apply disqualification for insurance offences, and to make a similar provision with regard to disqualification for reckless or dangerous driving. He pointed out that the 1930 Act had sought to make such a provision by laying down that for a second or subsequent offence of dangerous driving, disqualification should be automatic unless there were special reasons to the contrary.
However, the Lord Chief Justice had said that it was difficult to visualize any special reason in the case of dangerous driving, except the lapse of time from the date of a previous conviction.
After some debate Which showed the committee agreed on the point of the insurance offences, Mr. Deedes,-for the Home Office, said the Government recognized that the provisions of the 1930 Act for automatic disqualification for driving without insurance could bear hardly on certain types of case. He agreed that it should be looked into and the Government were prepared before the report stage of the Bill to examine it.
On dangerous driving, he said that disqualification could be only part of the penalty for more serious cases. It was also a safety precaution. Often, disqualification was a more powerful deterrent than the fine. If it were left to the discretion of the courts, there would be a tendency for disqualification to become a rarity. Statistics supported that view.
Mr. Molson gave further details of the Government's proposals on the testing of vehicles, which are to be introduced at the next stage of the Bill. The Minister, he said, was endeavouring to draft plans which would enable him progressively to extend testing, as opportunity and manpower made it possible, to a large category of vehicles.
The Government intended to keep in reserve the spot-check system.