---

Road Safety Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 46:"After Clause 39, insert the following new clause—" ““MOTORCYCLES IN BUS LANES All bus lanes when buses are moving in the same direction as traffic in the adjacent vehicle lane shall be open to use by motorcycles.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I return to the discussion that we had in Committee on the possibility of motorcycles using bus lanes. Primarily that would deliver important improvements in road safety, particularly for motorcyclists themselves. Moreover, increasing the safety of motorcycling would perhaps encourage more people to take up this environmentally friendly alternative to the car, which in turn would make significant contributions to the alleviation of local traffic problems. I was grateful to the Minister for her responses in Committee and I hope that she will be kind enough to clarify a number of issues for me. First, as the noble Baroness stated in Committee, at present only a minority of local authorities have taken the innovative step of allowing motorcyclists to use bus lanes. Consequently I should like to probe further on the provision to which the Minister referred that enables local authorities to exercise the discretionary powers which would allow motorcycles to use bus lanes. Secondly, the Minister reminded noble Lords that the Secretary of State has powers to permit motorcyclists the use of bus lanes in respect of trunk roads and motorways. The example of the M4 bus lane was given, although it seems to be available for all kinds of things. Is the Minister aware of any plans to introduce these measures elsewhere? In Committee the Minister assured noble Lords that, upon the result of the London trials, the Government would review,"““the guidance, which presently recommends that motorcyclists are not normally allowed to use bus lanes””.—[Official Report, 26/10/05; col. 1224.]" Will the Minister inform us when these experimental trials will finish and whether the results will be made publicly available? Furthermore, will the noble Baroness reassure the House that there will be no repeat of the analytical mistakes made in the interpretation of data in the interim reports on the three London studies? As noble Lords will recall, failure to give proper consideration to the impact of external factors; namely, the extensive roadworks on the A13 portion of the trial, led to somewhat skewed results and misinterpretation of the scheme’s road safety benefits. I should be grateful if the Minister would respond to those points and in particular give us some encouragement that what we see as a useful road safety initiative might gain support from the Government. I beg to move.