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Road Safety Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to some of the speakers on the Opposition Benches. I take from this that the definition of ““careless”” is that it is just a momentary lapse; that it does not really matter; that we are all careless at some stages in our lives; and that if our carelessness happens at the wrong moment and someone gets hurt or killed, it is very sad. And that is it: we certainly do not want to go to jail, which would be unheard of for a middle-class crime. I worry about this. If a person is driving a car or vehicle, it should not be any different from driving a train or flying an aeroplane. People are trained, although some training is more than others. In any event, a person is in charge of lethal equipment which could hurt not only you and your passengers, but other people. Whether that is careless or just bad luck, as some people might say, I do not know. I do not accept that just because a person had a momentary lapse, it does not matter, which is the impression that I am getting—perhaps wrongly. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said that we have the best road safety record in Europe, which may be true, but we are still killing 3,500 people every year and heaven knows how many hundreds of thousands of people are being seriously injured. I do not accept that the Magistrates’ Association or PACTS, of which I am a member, have given opinions based on their personal sufferings. I know that other groups might do that, but those two organisations should be listened to because they are objective. I believe that if they have thought about it carefully and think the Government’s view is right, we should support them. I support this provision, as I have all along. We should support anything which makes drivers think carefully, so that they have to concentrate the whole time they are at the wheel, looking for things that might possibly go wrong just around the corner or checking for people crossing the road or whatever—just as train and aeroplane drivers have to. We must get away from the amateur view that anyone can drive however they like. I certainly support the Government’s position on this.