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Road Safety Bill [Lords]

I should say at the outset that a lot people thought that it was already an offence to be at the wheel of a car with illegal substances in one’s body, but that is not the law as it stands. We do not tolerate train drivers who have illegal substances in their body when they are driving trains, or airline pilots who have illegal substances in their body when they are at the controls of an aircraft, yet the law seems to be much more relaxed about those who take the controls of motor vehicles on our roads, some of which, as we need not remind ourselves, are very large lorries. New clause 1 would outlaw driving with illegal substances in the body. I am the first to accept that before introducing a new criminal sanction we need to be satisfied that there is a real and serious problem that needs to be addressed, and I hope that the House will accept that there is. Not only that—the problem is getting worse. Many innocent people are being killed or seriously injured as a result of Parliament’s failure to address the problem. I began looking into this issue in February last year, when I was the shadow transport Minister taking the lead on road safety matters. The Southern Daily Echo reported an horrific case in which a driver was jailed after a crash in which he killed a young Bournemouth university student on the first day of their university career. That accident occurred because the driver, whose vehicle hit the student’s car head on, had been under the influence of amphetamines—an illegal drug—which he had been taking to try to keep awake. Although taking amphetamines may have that short-term effect, when it wears off a state of acute drowsiness occurs. That is what happened in that case, and a young life was lost on our roads as a result of a driver with illegal drugs in his system. Sadly, such an occurrence is far from unique. In 2000, the Transport Research Laboratory published data on the percentage of drivers killed in motor accidents who had illegal drugs in their body. I was amazed to discover that 22.9 per cent. of drivers killed in motor accidents had illegal drugs in their body.