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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My name is attached to Amendments Nos. 57 and 59, and I remind the Committee that I am president of the Road Danger Reduction Forum. I believe that reducing the number of penalty points from a minimum of three to two for certain speeding offences is sending wholly the wrong message to drivers. Many noble Lords have talked about the relationship between the speed of vehicles and accidents, a subject which I expect will come back again many times today in the Committee. Government research shows that drivers are twice as likely to kill pedestrians or cyclists if they hit them at 35 mph instead of 30 mph. That, to me, is argument enough for not reducing from three to two the minimum points. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord   Bradshaw, about complexity. Putting some of the limits up would be a good thing, but some pretty tight guidelines will have to be issued to reduce the amount of correspondence. Otherwise, as the noble Lord said, there will be a complete clog-up of correspondence. However, we must recall that speeding is treated more leniently than any other offence which involves killing or maiming. I do not know why that is, but the proposal would send completely the wrong message. I see it as mere pandering to the rather extreme end of the driving lobby who seem to want to go as fast as they like, and say that only they know what a safe speed is. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.