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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, if I was not aware of it before, I am now. However, the noble Earl will recognise that if 42 per cent are compliant, the Australians, or that particular state, have a law that the majority of young cyclists are not obeying. In this country, we are concerned about obedience to the law. In fact, the great strength of our safety measures is that we do not propose laws that people can then safely and easily ignore; we propose laws by which we expect people to abide. That is why, as I have argued before, the driving test requirements in this country are so much more stringent than elsewhere in the world. We expect people to reach that level of competence. The same thing applies to observation of the law. As the noble Earl will freely concede, driving conditions in much of Australia are somewhat different, given the vastly greater population of people in crowded islands. We must address things differently. I hope that he will accept that, although I recognise his statistics, I would not take any joy in a law that the majority of our fellow citizens disregarded.