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Road Safety

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), the Chair of the Select Committee, on its report. As a former member of the Committee, I know what good work it does and I remember with great affection her predecessor, Gwyneth Dunwoody, who always treated its members kindly—that generosity of spirit was not always extended to those hapless witnesses who gave evidence before us. I join everybody in the House in welcoming the very good figures on road casualties that came out last week; 408 people are alive in this country today who would not have been alive had it not been for the reduction. I hope that this country is clawing its way back to the top of the European safety record. I believe that only Holland remains ahead of us and I look forward to the years ahead, when we may well make further improvements. I think that tribute has been paid to a lot of different factors—among others, the actions of successive Governments and vehicle design. May I pay tribute to Britain's drivers, because these improvements are largely due to the sensible attitude of the majority of Britain's drivers? I do not wish to rain on the Minister's parade, but there is one proviso in those figures. The whole of the European Union experienced, on average, a 15 per cent. reduction in casualties last year. That was caused by a number of factors, the first of which has been mentioned: the fact that there was a noticeable reduction in speed on our roads last year when the price of petrol and diesel reached the dizzy heights that it did. We also saw, for the first time since the 1970s, a reduction in traffic on our roads. Last year, there was a 0.8 per cent. reduction because of the recessionary pressures in the economy. Although I have seen the figures on motorcycle casualties, which showed a slight increase, I wonder how much worse the figures would have been had we had a warm, decent summer. Many of those casualties are the born-again bikers—the people who passed their test on a Triumph Bonneville and now go out and buy a Ducati or a Fireblade and find that although the engine size is about the same the bike has tremendously more performance. Sadly, all too often on BBC Radio York on a Sunday afternoon I hear of yet another casualty on the rural roads of north Yorkshire. If we get more weather like this, I fear that we might well see more of that type of accident. Of course, although motorcycles make up only 1 per cent. of road traffic, they contribute to nearly a fifth of deaths on our roads. There are a couple of areas where the Government could, perhaps, be doing a little better. In saying that, I would not want to detract from the real progress that has been made in a number of areas. My first area of concern, however, is the motorcycle driving test. As the Minister will know, when the new manoeuvres aspect of the test came in, Ministers or officials failed to notice that the swerve and stop test had to be carried out at 50 kph. As we know, that is 31 mph—more than the speed limit on urban roads, which meant that the Government had to institute a programme of setting up large multipurpose test centres around the country. That has had two results. First, motorcyclists have to drive far greater distances to access a test. The nearest test centre to my constituency is Hull, which means more than an hour's journey. If it is winter and a young rider is on a moped or a small capacity motorcycle, it is rather a daunting journey. A number of people have been put off taking their test because of the larger distance involved. Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly, there have been a number of incidents, some of which have resulted in injury, during the controversial swerve and stop test, which must be carried out, as I mentioned, at 50 kph. In fact, in the first three weeks there were 14 incidents, I think, three of which resulted in injuries so serious that the person had to go to hospital. Before today's debate, most of the reports of concerns about this matter have been largely hearsay. I have a couple of letters that I have received, however. One is from a constituent of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). She says:""I am a teacher…We are desperately saving for a mortgage and to start a family, but needed transport to get to work…I am too scared to take the test. I have already heard of 2 accidents in the first few days, including a broken arm due to the new manoeuvres that you are required to take. Riding instructors have been speaking out against it, but the current government's agencies have been ignoring expert advice."" I have another e-mail that I received only last week from a lady called Jean Galvin, who says,""I am an older female motorcyclist who is returning to motorcycling after a number of years. I attempted to take the new module 1 test on 28th May and failed. I have no issue with the majority of the test and applaud the testing of slow manoeuvring and clutch control, but I was horrified at the swerve test.""I took this on a 125 which I had to violently accelerate around a curve in order to reach the speed of 50 kph. I was required to do this despite approaching a hazard. On my first attempt, I reached a speed of 49 kph and felt sure that if I had attempted to swerve in the required manner I would crash (as have many others). I used my best judgment and avoided the hazard in a safe way i.e. without the swerve.""All of my instincts tell me not to accelerate toward a hazard—how can this be expected of any motorcyclist. It is now my intention to continue retaking my CBT"—" that is, her compulsory basic training—""and to ride my 125 until such a time as the"" Driving Standards Agency""comes to its senses and changes this situation. My heart goes out to the family of the person who will become the first fatality."" Riders are being deterred from taking training and from taking the test. Having taken the compulsory basic training, which is basically like riding round cones in a car park—actually, it is better than that, but it is very basic initial training—riders realise that they can ride for two years without taking a test. I am concerned that many riders will continue to ride for two years, take the CBT and ride for two years again. That will result in less well trained motorcycle riders on our roads. The second point that I want to raise is the issue of drink and drug-driving. The Opposition do not intend to reduce the drink-drive limit, for the very reasons that the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) stated. Many other EU countries have lower limits, but they do not have the gold standard ban. As we have seen with speeding, giving people points on their licence and fines does not deter them. We feel that retaining the ban is very important, and for that reason we will not follow the example of other EU countries. However, I applaud the campaigns carried out by Ministers during the summer and at Christmas to raise awareness of drink-driving. If we get directly elected police commissioners in this country, they might want to put prioritising the enforcement of drink-driving in their election manifestos.