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Road Safety

The Opposition's position is to look at how the driving test can be made more appropriate and to make the driving test better but not necessarily harder. I have discussed with the Minister's predecessor the young men who pass their tests with flying colours, but the rather nervous drivers who perhaps scrape through the test are often the ones who are killed in accidents or incidents. So we need to make the test more appropriate to the conditions that young drivers face. During the consultation that, I think, has recently closed, we suggested taking the manoeuvres out of the driving test—the three-point turn, parallel parking and reversing around a corner—to buy an additional 15 or 20 minutes during the test when other driving skills, such as perhaps driving at higher speeds, could be examined to try to determine which young drivers are likely to be at risk. Rogue drivers have been mentioned. As the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) said, the fines that have been levied for having no insurance policy are often much less than the premiums paid by 17-year-olds. I do not know whether many hon. Members saw the "Top Gear" programme a couple of weeks ago, when Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond posed as 17-year-olds when trying to insure their cars. I must add that, of course, they did so over the telephone. I am sure that Mr. Hammond might just have been able to carry it off, but the other two would have certainly failed miserably at posing as 17-year-olds. They were quoted punitive premiums. Sadly, it is no wonder that many young people decide to become rogue drivers. Sadly, these days, it is very easy to be a rogue driver, given the ease of cloning vehicles. Police around the country are deploying many more automatic number plate detection systems, which are very good at picking up cars that are not insured or MOT-ed, or those that have been flagged up on the police national computer as being of interest, but it is very easy to steal a number plate from another identical car or even to go on to the internet to buy a so-called show plate that can be placed on a car and used to clone another one. Two years ago, I went on to one of those show plate sites on the internet and managed to buy number plates identical to those on the Prime Minister's Jaguar XJ6. Surely, if I can clone the Prime Minister's car, any car in the country could be cloned. I hasten to add that I did not put the plates on to my car, so congestion charge notices have not been arriving at No. 10 Downing street. However, the Government thought that they had ticked the box and come up with a solution because one had to show photographic proof of identity, along with the car's log book, when presenting oneself at a garage to buy number plates. Sadly, one can go to a variety of internet sites that advertise show plates, and although there is a warning at the bottom of the website saying that the plate must not be used on vehicles on the road, the plates are identical to the ones provided legitimately and can be used very easily to clone vehicles. Similarly, when plates are attached to a car, they can be removed and placed on another car. I suggest that simple, basic technology—the word "technology" does not even describe it—such as tamper-proof number plates that are broken if removed, could prevent such cloning from going on and mean fewer rogue drivers on our roads. All too often, rogue drivers, who are not insured, may be disqualified and whose cars might not be roadworthy, are involved in accidents on our roads. On speed enforcement, in some ways the Government could be accused of being a one-club golfer, given their reliance on fixed-speed cameras. As we see from the large number of people who have been fined because of those cameras, they are not even effective at stopping people speeding in areas where there are cameras, never mind where there are no cameras. The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) mentioned reactive signs. A reactive sign costs only £7,000, whereas a fixed-speed camera is £40,000. We look with interest at the experiment in Swindon, where the Conservative-controlled council has withdrawn from the safety partnership and is deploying the money in other ways to try to improve safety on its roads. My constituency is in north Yorkshire, where we do not have any fixed-speed cameras, and it is interesting that it has never been drawn to my attention that improvements in road safety are any lesser in north Yorkshire than anywhere else in the country.