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Road Safety Bill [HL]

I hear what the noble Lord says. However, his amendment ties me down to the distinct uniformity of one figure. I emphasise an obvious point. The best people to judge the situation are the local authorities. There is variation because local authorities look at their road planning, road structure, the incidence of traffic and the number of accidents against criteria on which they make judgments about traffic islands. The noble Lord suggests that his Treasury image is somewhat less burnished than in the past. Far from it. We all hold him in the highest regard for his concern about the accurate deployment of resources. How much does the noble Lord think that it will cost the country to change every traffic island which is different from the 11 centimetres referred to down to a standard form? He has kindly indicated that he might accept two standard forms of traffic islands. We would have the minor task of telling every local authority that we have it right and they all have it wrong. Someone has to stand the cost of reconstructing all the traffic islands. That does not sound like the Treasury speaking; it is not the Department for Transport speaking. I imagine that we have the hot breath of the Treasury on our back when we consider these issues. The noble Lord may know of an instance where the height of the traffic island being too great had an unfortunate consequence. However, in anecdotal terms, I know of a traffic island where the height was too low and a vehicle crossed it too readily with devastating effects on the vehicle it struck on the other side of the island. So local authorities can err in that respect too. Surely it would be wrong to put into primary legislation heights which relate to different traffic circumstances and different effects. It is a noble try by the noble Lord. Although I am grateful to him for introducing a note of novelty into our debates, I hope that he will withdraw the amendment.