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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Baroness said that she would try again. She has tried again at Third Reading with a concept that I felt obliged to reject at Report. I appreciate that the amendment is intended to meet objections to the previous suggestion that an exception should be made if a call is made by the driver of a vehicle that is stationary with the engine switched off. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said in Committee that he was concerned that the present law, because of the wide definition of the expression ““driving”” in road traffic legislation, could mean that people who get stuck in long traffic jams and who switch off their engines and communicate with others to inform them about a delay will, strictly speaking, be committing an offence. The noble Baroness said at Report stage that there must be some leeway to enable people to make a brief emergency telephone call if, for example, they are stuck in a traffic jam and are very late picking up a child from school. She said that it is ““absurd”” that any driver of a vehicle that is not moving, even if the engine is switched off, who uses their mobile phone to make an urgent call, should be guilty of an offence. We all agree that it is right in principle that people should not use their mobile phones when driving. The nub of my objection to the previous wording was that an exception for when a vehicle is stationary with the engine switched off would create a perverse incentive to drivers to stop and turn off their engines in what might often be inappropriate circumstances. For example, drivers clearly should not use hand-held phones while at traffic lights or during short hold-ups that may occur during any typical journey—and all too often do. I am not attracted by the idea of exceptions to that general principle—that drivers may consider themselves as having the right to make urgent calls. Who is going to define the nature of the urgent call? The noble Baroness has given an unexceptionable example; where a child has to be collected from some place and it would clearly be of enormous help for the safety of that child if people were informed. However, everyone can think of a reason why they might be frustrated by a traffic jam and that an urgent call would need to be made. Who will make the judgment about what is a proper telephone call of an ““emergency nature”” and what is a telephone call for personal convenience? We cannot depart from the general principle of road safety regarding the use of mobile phones on the basis of such uncertain propositions. The new wording in the amendment does not meet those objections. Indeed, it creates others, as my noble friend Lord Anderson indicated. A vehicle must always be safe, even when the engine is running and the vehicle is moving, otherwise the driver is doing something wrong and, therefore, is liable to be prosecuted. The intention may be exactly the opposite—to allow a mobile phone to be used when a vehicle has been made incapable of moving. That may not necessarily render that vehicle safe. In fact, we can all think of circumstances when a vehicle, with its engine switched off, is a potential obstruction which may occasion other aberrant behaviour by other road users. So we do not think that the amendment would add anything to the safety of the travelling public, which is the basis of this legislation. We considered seriously whether a new definition of ““driving”” would help in this area. We looked at that matter when the mobile phone offence legislation was before Parliament in 2002 and we reached the conclusion that we could not make progress on that front. There are very good reasons for not defining the word ““driving”” in road traffic legislation, and we have come a very long way in legislation for drivers without the need for such a definition. It should be for the courts to judge the circumstances of the case when deciding whether an offence has been committed rather than for legislation to be prescriptive about this question of driving. There are very many examples, such as the present one, where our legal system leaves the enforcing authorities to make a judgment having regard to all the circumstances. That is a strength of our system, not a weakness. At Report stage, I was asked specifically about people stopping and using a mobile phone to get in contact with the emergency authorities. At that stage, I indicated that I could not see how a prosecution could possibly succeed if it was established that that was what the individual was doing. I could have been more categoric. It is not an offence to contact the emergency services on a mobile phone in an emergency of that kind. But we do not think that making exceptions for using the phone in any other circumstances, however beneficent the intention—I cannot think of a more benevolent intention than safeguarding the interests of a child when one might be late in arriving to pick up that child—would do anything other than create real difficulties for the legislation. I hope that, having had successive tries at this matter, the noble Baroness will accept the Government’s argument and withdraw her amendment.