ROAD TRAFFIC BILL. [H.L.]

§ EARL RUSSELL

No; not under 2½ tons.

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OK CHELWOOD

I was referring to the First Schedule. I may have misunderstood it, and I am very much obliged to my noble friend. The Schedule, referring to goods vehicles, fixes a maximum limit for those without a trailer of thirty miles an hour 1279 if all the wheels are fitted with pneumatic tyres, and twenty miles an hour if all the wheels are not fitted with pneumatic tyres but are fitted with soft or elastic tyres. There is no suggestion there as to weight. I may have misunderstood the point. I am quite aware that there is a distinction between motor cars and heavy motor cars, and that this distinction depends upon weight, but when you come to the Schedule, if I have not misread it, all goods vehicles are liable to a speed limit, and not only the heavier types. But, even if you take another case, all public service vehicles are subject to the speed limit. I may be wrong but, as I read it, any vehicle maybe a public service vehicle if it is constructed to carry more than eight passengers. Accordingly you may have a vehicle, as I understand it, constructed to carry nine passengers, and used for hire, which is subject to the speed limit, and you may have an even heavier vehicle, constructed to carry eight passengers, which is not used for hire, which will not be a public service vehicle and which will not be subject to the speed limit. I am not saying this by way of criticising the actual provision. The moment you lay down distinctions between cars, I do not care how you phrase them, you will find these anomalies. They are inevitable if you draw a line between two sets of cars. You will find it impossible to make any real distinction between the two sets. That is a great difficulty, as it appears to me.

I concede, though with the greatest reluctance and regret, that we have to give in. We cannot enforce the law that exists, and I am afraid that a mere change in the speed from twenty to thirty miles an hour would very likely not enable us to enforce the law. I admit that. I confess that, rather than have the proposal of the Government, I would prefer to have a speed limit applying to all vehicles. I think that the injustice of the proposal that the Government have indicated is impossible to defend. But I would rather try something which would be applied to all vehicles, and yet would not abandon altogether the conception of speed as a danger to the public, while not imposing an absolute, hard-and-fast line beyond which everyone was a lawbreaker. That seems to me to be the evil of the present system. The suggestion 1280 that I am laying before your Lordships is that you should have a speed which should be declared to be the proper, the safe speed—let me put it in that way—for all kinds of vehicles. No doubt very properly it would have to be very different in the case of heavy vehicles from what it was in the case of light ones, but it would be a safe speed. If then, any one driving beyond that speed was charged with dangerous driving on the ground that any speed greater than that was a danger in the condition of the road, it would be for him to say, it having been proved that he was going at a greater speed than the safe speed, that in all the circumstances of the case the speed was a safe one and that there was no danger to the public.

The case is put of a road on the top of a down with a perfectly clear line of vision all round so that there is no chance of anybody being hidden behind a bush or hedge and going across the road at the last minute, and it is said, on such a road as that is it not perfectly legitimate for any one to go as fast as he likes? I am not sure that any such road really exists. Such roads may exist but they are very rare. On all the roads I am acquainted with there are from time to time depressions in the ground and so on which may always conceal a child or something else. Supposing such roads do exist, it probably is safe to go at a very great speed, but if you are driving on the ordinary roads of this country I am satisfied that in the great majority of cases a speed greater than 35 miles an hour is commonly a dangerous speed, and the provision I should like to make is that anyone who drives at more than 35 miles an hour does it at his peril. He is prima facie driving dangerously unless he can show in point of fact that the circumstances were such as to make it safe.

With that provision there is no reason why it should not apply to vehicles of all kinds. You have a safe speed appropriate to each kind of vehicle and you say that, if the vehicle is going faster than that, then prima facie it is being driven dangerously. We are then never likely to be put in the humiliating position which we find ourselves now, a branch of the Legislature forced to admit that, because a branch of the law is habitually broken, it ought to be 1281 changed. We ought to avoid such a future contingency as that and it is for those reasons, broadly, that I propose the Amendment standing in my name.

§ THE LORD CHAIRMAN

In order to save the rights of Lord Howe who has an Amendment later, I shall put the question in the form "That line 34 stand part of the Bill."

§ EARL RUSSELL

I have listened to the noble Viscount's arguments. They are arguments, of course, that we have heard before with I think one exception, which certainly has never been stressed so much before, and that is that the Legislature, humiliated by the motorist, is going to make this alteration because the country is not strong enough to enforce the law. That seems to me a complete mis-statement of the position. I am not prepared to admit that Parliament or the police are not strong enough to enforce any law in this country which it is thought proper should he enforced. The reason I ventured to give on the Second Reading is that public opinion condemns the law and does not believe in it. Public opinion thinks that the law has no moral sanction behind it and no reason behind it and that is why these police traps for speed alone have disappeared almost entirely in this country. I would recall to the noble Viscount on this point the evidence of a chief constable who was called before the Committee on his Bill. The question was put to him: "If you had had no Section 9 in existence in your county during the last three years would it have made any difference to you?" and he replied: "No difference whatever."

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I would remind my noble friend that there was very strong evidence from the Metropolitan Police to the exactly contrary effect.

§ EARL RUSSELL

But at the moment I was putting a case which was not that of the Metropolitan Police and I do not see why the noble Viscount wishes to correct me. The chief constable in question said he was able to manage his county—as is true of the majority of chief 1282 constables—without any reference to the existence on the Statute Book of Section 9 imposing a speed limit of twenty miles an hour. Since the noble Lord referred to the Metropolitan Police, may I say that a majority of chief constables at a meeting they held declared themselves against any fixed speed limit. It is perfectly true the Metropolitan Police and Metropolitan Magistrates have always taken a different view. They still take that view in spite of the Report of the Royal Commission. The law is not being altered because Parliament and the police are unable to enforce it. The law is being altered because the present law does not prevent motorists driving dangerously, and we desire to alter the law because we are quite certain a speed limit is not the way to stop it. That is the reason the law is being altered. This speed limit affords a protection which is entirely illusory. We want to afford a protection which is real and which will be insisted upon.

Then the noble Viscount said, as he was fully justified in saying as a debating point: "If what you say about the speed limit is true why does it not apply universally? Why should not everything go as fast as it can on all occasions?" There is no particular reason why it should not go as fast as is safe on all occasions, but it is obvious that what may be safe for a light motor car under proper control and with proper appliances is not safe for a large steam engine weighing from 11 to 15 tons. The same speed limit cannot be safe for both of them. My noble friend has delivered himself into my hands when he talked about a safe speed. I have already explained there is no such thing in all circumstances as a safe speed for any vehicle or at any moment. The speed which is safe is a constantly changing thing, no matter what the vehicle or what the circumstances. If you adopted the suggestion of the noble Viscount to fix a speed limit of thirty-five miles an hour on the ground that that is a safe speed, what is immediately the argument, what is immediately the psychological effect? It is that, in all save exceptional circumstances, thirty-five miles an hour is a safe speed and not a dangerous speed. That is exactly the psychology we desire to break down and put an end to. We desire to make it clear that any speed may be 1283 dangerous at any time and any place, that it must depend upon the circumstances and that you can never say ten miles an hour or fifteen miles an hour is safe any more than you can say twenty miles an hour or thirty-five miles an hour is safe.

This particular Amendment of the noble Lord suggests something to which I would have no objection as a test for myself. That is to say, that it puts the onus upon the driver of proving, if he is exceeding some arbitrary fixed speed, that he is not driving dangerously. So far as I personally am concerned I should not have the least objection to facing that test, but that is putting the law the wrong way round. The objection to it is what will follow when a speed limit is fixed and you have the necessary implication that speeds lower than that speed are safe. No speed is safe. You cannot have a safe speed either at the top or at the bottom of the scale. You must in each case take the circumstances as they stand. I am quite satisfied myself that the effect of this change and the administration of this new law by the police will be to impose greater caution upon motorists and not less. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking my noble friend Lord Brentford for what he said upon the Second Reading. Let no motorists suppose that what is intended by this Bill is to give them licence. It is not intended to convey to the motorist that because there is no speed limit he can drive as fast as he likes. Far from it. It is intended to convey to him that it is his duty at all times and in all places to drive at that speed which in the circumstances is safe, and if anyone makes the mistake of supposing that he will have a licence to drive furiously, I think and hope that the police will teach him that he has made a mistake.

Speed is now, under the old section which is included in this Bill, an element in dangerous driving, and may, if proved, be itself sufficient proof of dangerous driving in given circumstances. The old section, the words of which we have retained, provides that if any person drives at a speed which is dangerous to the public that will be an offence. I think your Lordships, if you adopted this Amendment, would check what I hope we are going to succeed in doing by this I 1284 Bill—namely, putting a new spirit into the motoring public—a spirit not of artificial limits but of caution at all places. I know the noble Viscount thinks that once a limit is fixed it will have some effect upon people. Upon reckless motorists it will have no effect. Upon the more or less careful motorist it may have the very dangerous effect of making him think that too high a speed is a safe speed. I hope that we may take this Amendment as a test Amendment.

§ THE EARL OF HALSBURY

After the noble Earl opposite has replied in that form, I feel great diffidence in saying anything more, but anybody who has dealt with the question of motorists, both in the civil and the criminal courts, knows perfectly well that every motorist, either upon a criminal charge or in civil litigation, always says at once: "Oh, I was driving under twenty miles an hour." We know perfectly well what the effect of having a speed limit has been. If you have a speed limit of twenty miles an hour everybody thinks he is entitled at all times to drive up to twenty miles an hour. If the noble Viscount would take out his car and drive it himself—

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I have not got one.

§ THE EARL OF HALSBURY

If the noble Viscount allowed himself to be driven past a school at an hour when the children were rushing out from that school, he would realise at once that a mile an hour might be too great a speed at which to go.

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

No one doubts it.

§ THE EARL OF HALSBURY

If you have a thirty-mile an hour limit you get people to think that they are always entitled to go at thirty miles; and they are not. As the noble Earl opposite has said, you have to take into consideration every particular circumstance for a particular spot. The noble Viscount has put down an Amendment in which he puts it upon a person to prove a negative, which I thought was absolutely wrong from all ideas of legislation. The person has to prove that the speed could not involve danger to the public. How on earth is he going to prove that it could not be dangerous to the public? It is a perfectly novel idea in our jurisprudence. 1285 Then see what the effect is going to be. Has the noble Viscount looked at paragraph 5 of the First Schedule? Supposing you get an invalid carriage or ambulance coming up with a patient who is being rushed to hospital: are you going to involve the driver of that ambulance, in the penalties under Clause 101? That is the present proposal—namely, that he is guilty of the offence of dangerous driving under Clause 11, unless the driver can prove that it could not have been dangerous. Is it contemplated that in those particular circumstances the person is to be left to die upon the ambulance rather than that the driver should take upon himself the risk of going to prison for three months if he is not able to prove that his driving was not dangerous to the public? Again, who is the public? Is it the person on the ambulance or the person on the street? Your Lordships will also observe that there are very heavy penalties, unless the driver can prove a negative.

The noble Viscount has drawn attention to the fact that a difference is made between two different kinds of vehicles. Let me give your Lordships an instance. Take the motor car used by the ordinary man with an ordinary and not very great income. I resent very much that it should be suggested that these light Morris cars or Baby Austin oars should be necessarily the perquisite of the rich They are not, and they are to be exempted from the speed limit. Then the noble Viscount asks, Why not all? Can you really draw a parallel between such a car as a Morris-Cowley and a large char-a-bancs? In the case of the Morris-Cowley you are probably dealing with a person who both drives and owns the car. That is not the case of the char-a-bancs. There you are dealing with the unfortunate driver, who is scheduled to drive according to a time-table, and who knows that he will be dismissed if he does not keep to the schedule. If you look at this Bill, that is very nicely provided for by subsection (4) of Clause 101. There you are dealing with these big vehicles, and the owner has to show, not a negative but a positive, and a very good positive to. He has to show that he has "used due diligence to enforce the execution of this Act," and if he does not do that then the owner, as well as the driver, is responsible.

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

It does not let off the driver.

§ THE EARL OF HALSBUKY

No, but it ropes in the owner, and it seems to me there is very good reason why there should be differentiation between the owner-driver of a light car, who is probably not a rich man, and the managing owner of a big char-a-bancs company, who probably is. I do not approve of a speed limit, and I hope your Lordships will not accede to this Amendment. If it be taken as a test on the question of a speed limit, I hope you will reject it, and certainly on its particular wording I hope you will have nothing to do with it.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

I would like to ask whether, if we vote against this Amendment, it will be open afterwards to put in a speed limit? I am in favour of a speed limit, but I do not want to waste time by discussing it now if we can discuss it later on. I cannot support the Amendment, because it says there shall be a speed limit later on but that if a man can prove that he was not driving dangerously then the speed limit vanishes.

§ VISCOUNT SUMNER

I do not think the noble Earl opposite, or the noble Earl who spoke last but one, has really grappled with one point which stood out in the speech of Lord Cecil as a fresh point. It is a little difficult to discuss this because this Amendment involves a reference to the Schedule and to the Amendments to the Schedule, but we ought to bear in mind that this part of the noble Viscount's scheme will introduce into the Schedule that which is absent at present, a speed limit of 35 miles an hour for those private motor cars which are now, according to the Schedule, to have no limit. The point that he has raised, to which no answer has been attempted, and, I think, no answer is possible, is this: How do you think that you can enforce speed limits upon commercial cars when uncommercial cars are to be free from any speed limit at all?

The arguments that have been urged by the noble Earl opposite against speed limits upon the ground that they mislead the mind of the chauffeur into thinking that to him all things are lawful, and it docs not matter whether they are expedient 1287 or not so long as he keeps within his speed limit, apply equally to the driver of a commercial vehicle, who has a speed limit. And how does anyone who has witnessed the enormous driving force of the organised motoring interests, displayed through all these debates, think that it will be possible to choke off the opposition and the attacks of the organised owners and drivers of vehicles which are to be subject to a speed limit? Whatever else you must have in a Bill like this, it appears to me that in the matter of a speed limit it must be the same for everybody. That is the fundamental principle, I understand, of modern democracy—that everything must be the same for everybody; and at any rate if you keep up a speed limit for one class of motor car and none for another you only bring over again the sad chapter of our experiences now for nearly a generation, and, owing to what is called public opinion—which means the organised desire of motorists to go faster and faster and faster, and nothing else—the law will once more be defied and, a sufficient body of lawless persons having met with a sufficient body of inept magistrates, the result will be that the law will have to go by the board.

I should not like to see that happen again in my time. But that is what will happen. No democratic Government will stand up against the organised demand by the owners of commercial vehicles to have their speed limit abolished, if the Government propose to maintain a discrimination and to leave one class of cars free. I do not at this present moment wish to commit myself to a preference between speed limits for all or speed limits for nobody, but I am quite satisfied that you cannot have this half-and-half scheme anyway. If you are to have a speed limit, I think it is reasonable to make it high, that is to say, high in comparison with the capacity of the modern car, not only for speed but for stopping. If Parliament had done its duty twenty-years ago it would have amended the twenty-mile limit by a single-clause Act of Parliament, because when the motor car ceased to be an uncertain and often dangerous piece of mechanism, and had been developed far more rapidly than public opinion developed into a highly flexible and easily controllable piece of machinery, then was the time to have 1288 altered the speed limit and make it more rational. Then would have been the time when we might have hoped that benches of magistrates might have enforced the law, instead of betraying it.

But as it is, we have now reached a stage when, if there is to be a speed limit at all, it must be high. I cannot understand why, if there is one at all, it should not be a perfectly rational plan to adopt the noble Viscount's suggestion, not of proving a negative or any other chop-logic of that kind, but, by changing the burden of proof, calling upon the man who has exceeded the speed limit laid down for him to show that he did no harm. It is a thing that is perfectly familiar in the Admiralty Court, where, if you break the sea rules prescribed by law, you are held to blame unless you can show that you could not have done any harm—that it could not have led to an accident. In the same way, if you only use the positive expression here, and instead of saying "could not involve danger to the public" you say "was safe to the public" there will be no difficulty in the matter. I ask your Lordships to consider this, not as part of the trite and almost tedious controversy which has gone on between the speed men and those who wish to walk about peacefully, but as a matter of practical legislation, and I ask you to try the experiment of putting the burden of proof that he was doing right on the man who prima facie is doing wrong by exceeding a speed limit. And if you are going to decide to have no speed limit at all, I would like you to ask yourselves the question, considering the multitude of cars driving on the roads, and considering how much driving to the common danger can be done without breaking anybody's neck, what chance do you think the police have of proving a case against people who, if only let alone, will break every law on the subject that there is?

§ LORD DANESFORT

The question of the speed limit is one which affects the comfort and, it may be, the lives of almost every man, woman, and child in this country, and what we are considering at the moment is this: shall we, by abolishing the speed limit, reduce the appalling death toll consequent upon the driving of motor cars—some six thousand deaths every year—and shall we reduce the terrible injury to limb, something like 1289 150,000 a year from the same cause? I suppose we all have our own individual opinions, formed partly by prejudice—I do not deny that in my own case prejudice may exist—opinions formed very often by very imperfect experience. In a matter of this sort I suggest that it would be wiser to accept the opinion of experts who have had most opportunity of testing by actual practice what the best course to be adopted is. I look at the Report of the Royal Commission and I find that among those who are in favour of retaining a speed limit (and I do not say for the moment what it should be) is, first of all, the Commissioner of Police in the Metropolis. Well, he has an enormous experience, he has a huge area to cover, and his deliberate opinion is that there should be a speed limit. The majority of the city and borough chief constables with very wide experience are also in favour of retaining the speed limit. Then there are the Metropolitan Magistrates and also, as I understand, the Magistrates' Association generally, who are in favour of the speed limit. Surely the persons before whom these cases come, who hear the evidence in each case, know to what the accidents are due: they, too, are in favour of keeping the speed limit.

And what is the alternative? The alternative, if you abolish the speed limit, is to rely solely on the prohibition of driving to the danger of the public. I venture to say that that is no real protection. Driving to the danger of the public is very largely a matter of individual opinion, and very often a matter—as, indeed, the Royal Commission's Report finds—of the individual opinion of the bench before whom the case comes. The Report says that from the point of view of the Royal Commission it is very difficult to rely upon laws as to dangerous driving. In point of fact, the Commissioner of Police in the Metropolis says that it is very difficult to get a conviction for dangerous driving unless an accident has taken place. Now you are going to substitute for all speed limits for these lighter cars this question of dangerous driving, and yet we have evidence from the experts who say that many magistrates will not convict for dangerous driving unless someone has been killed or injured. Is that a right state of things?

It is quite true the Report also states that there are some chief constables who say that they can get convictions sometimes 1290 even though there is no actual accident. Other chief constables say they find a great difficulty in getting convictions if there is no accident. Surely the fact that there is this difficulty in getting convictions in cases where the charge is driving to the danger of the public, shows that you cannot rely alone upon danger to the public in order to protect the public from these terrible casualities which now take place. The Report suggests—and I think the Bill carries out the suggestion to a certain extent—that if you greatly increase the penalty for driving to the danger of the public you will probably have better results. Surely, if you are going to increase these penalties, you increase the difficulty of getting convictions. It is difficult enough now to get convictions in cases of driving to the public danger. Those benches of magistrates who already are averse from giving convictions in these cases would be far more averse from finding there is danger to the public when the penalties are greatly increased, as the Bill proposes to increase them.

I have given your Lordships a list of some of the experts who gave evidence. Who are the people in favour of abolishing the speed limit? They are all motor organisations, but, very significantly, the Report says, that is exactly as might be expected. They want their members to be able to drive fast. That is the inference which I gather from the Report. They do not want to have any speed limit put upon the people who belong to their associations. There are certainly some county councils who favour the abolition of the speed limit, and no doubt their opinions are of value—I do not suggest for a moment they are not—but taking the police and magistrates, and the chief constables whose opinions I have already cited, I think there is no comparison in the weight of evidence in favour of retaining the speed limit as compared with the evidence which desires to abolish it.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, says—and I think my noble friend Lord Halsbury said something of the same kind—that motorists will think that if there is a speed limit they can always drive up to that limit safely. Supposing there is a speed limit of thirty-five miles an hour, is there any motorist so senseless, so reckless, so abandoned that, if the speed limit is put at thirty-five an hour, he will think that 1291 he can drive in a crowded street in London at thirty-five miles an hour, past all the side streets and everything else? If there is such a person the sooner he comes under the observation and the correction of the law the better. The truth is that motorists are not—I was going to say such fools—so reckless, perhaps I might say they are not such criminals as to suppose if the speed limit is thirty-five miles an hour, they can drive anywhere and everywhere at thirty-five miles an hour. Of course they will use their discretion, especially when they know that a penalty is attached if they are found exceeding the limit.

There was a reason given for abolishing the speed limit by certain of those who came before the Royal Commission. They said: "Speed is not in itself dangerous if the car is under control." That is just the question—if it is under control. If you have a heavy car going at thirty, forty or fifty miles an hour upon a road which may be slippery and if that car has to be pulled up suddenly it will skid and go into the bank or into some other car. The truth is when you have a car going at a high speed, especially a heavy car, it cannot be said that it is under control. Cars come from round the corner, and children and dogs come out of doors—and I do not think your Lordships will leave dogs out of the question—to cross the road, and the man with the best intention in the world cannot pull up. Therefore, this suggestion that speed is not in itself dangerous is a very misleading one and I would ask your Lordships to pay little attention to it. When I am told that speed in itself is not at all dangerous I ask myself: Why is it that when we had nothing but horse traffic the number of casualties on the road was exceedingly small, and why is it now that we have motor traffic we have 6,000 deaths a year and 150,000 injuries? Surely, the answer is: "Because the motor goes twice, thrice, four times as fast as the horse." Therefore, I beg your Lordships to have regard to the evidence that was given by the experts and to vote for the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Cecil.

§ EARL HOWE

Perhaps at this stage the noble Earl opposite (Earl Russell) would like me to say what I have to say on my Amendment, and I may be forgiven if I address my remarks on the 1292 speed limit upon the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Cecil. The Amendment we are discussing now proposes to raise the speed limit to 35 miles an hour. In my Amendment I desire to raise the speed limit to 40 miles an hour. The reason I want to have the speed limit is a purely personal one. I do not in any sense represent anybody except myself in speaking on this particular Amendment. A good deal has been said this afternoon upon the subject of the psychological effect of speed limits. At an earlier stage we decided the question of the examination of drivers. If the House had been able to agree to the Amendment, which in that case was moved by the noble Viscount (Viscount Cecil of Chelwood) and had set up a system of examination of drivers, I myself should not have desired to move my own Amendment. As the House was not able to accept that, I am to a certain extent afraid of the psychological effect.

I hold the view that there are a number of people in these days of mass-produced vehicles—an increasing number of people—who drive motor cars on the road with very little road sense and very little imagination. I do not believe that there are very many intentionally reckless drivers; in fact I am sure there are very few. I believe those who do err, err much more sometimes from inattention and sometimes from lack of imagination. I believe they err in many respects unwittingly, but I am a little afraid of the effect of the total removal of the speed limit. I am afraid that if it encourages a number of comparatively speaking inefficient drivers to put up their general speed it may result in an increase in disasters. The one thing I am most anxious about in this Bill is that whatever we do we should try to do something to lessen the appalling total of road casualties which are published from time to time.

Now in my submission the trouble with regard to the speed limit, and the reason why it has been so consistently disregarded, as it undoubtedly has been, is to be found in the altogether unequal operation of the speed limit clause. You go from a County like Kent where no one, I think, has ever seen a speed limit trap, to a County like Surrey where the police adopt methods which have in time become quite notorious in character. You go from there to Hertfordshire where 1293 again you will hardly, if ever, find a single speed limit trap. If there is going to be one you may perhaps see a notice in the newspapers from the chief constable warning everybody that he has had complaints about excessive speed and that unless the complaints are reduced he will have to set up a control. That is the reasonable way of doing things. A motorist, however, travelling from one area to another never knows how the speed limit will be administered. In one area he is subject to rigid control and in another no notice is taken of him so long as he does not endanger anybody in a town or in an urban area.

If we do away with speed limit offences and leave the motorist to be dealt with under the dangerous driving or careless driving clause, then I would like to submit to your Lordships that the matter will become very largely, or may become very largely, unless unhappily some accident results, a matter of personal opinion. On the other hand exceeding the speed limit is a question of fact. I was very much attracted by the argument put forward by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Summer, when he alluded to that point. My noble friend Viscount Cecil gave us a very gloomy view when he said that those who wanted to do away with the speed limit were probably representatives of the rich. I rather traverse what he said, in company with what the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury said, because I think he must have forgotten that motor cycles are also included under this Bill, and that it is proposed that the speed limit for motor cycles also should be abolished. I do not think he was quite fair to people who use motor vehicles when he suggested that it was only people who are the fortunate possessors of this world's goods who desire to do away with the speed limit. Equally I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Danesfort, was quite fair to the motoring organisations when he said they wanted to drive fast. It is purely a difference of opinion as to whether it is better to control motor cars by limiting their speed or by imposing more severe penalties for dangerous driving, or perhaps both. I submit to your Lordships that there is a psychological danger that if you do away with the speed limit certain people who are not really qualified to drive their vehicles will be induced to 1294 go faster, it is for that reason that I desire to submit to your Lordships the Amendments I have put on the Paper.

§ EARL RUSSELL

When I was listening to the noble Earl I could not help asking myself one or two questions. He has put on the Paper an Amendment to impose a speed limit of forty miles an hour. That is the speed limit that he has chosen himself. I am not going to put questions to him, but I could not help asking myself one or two questions. If this is to be the speed limit, does the noble Earl propose invariably to observe it? That was one of the questions. When the speed limit was twenty miles an hour was the noble Earl never accused at any time of going at more than forty miles an hour even with that limit? Is it not true that these limits are to be merely fanciful things not intended to be observed and not intended to be a rigid code of law which people are bound to observe? I just want to add one other word in reference to the noble Lord, Lord Danesfort. He quoted a great many authorities, and most of those he quoted were of his own way of thinking, but he left out one authority. There was one authority that listened to the whole of the evidence, that heard what everybody had to say on all sides, and that was the Royal Commission. That authority would surely have no prejudged opinion and that authority came down unanimously against the continuance of the speed limit.

§ LORD RAGLAN

In many parts of the country and in one part of Scotland especially which I know very well there has been for many years no prosecution for exceeding the speed limit. I am not aware that anybody has suggested that there are more accidents there than in places where the speed limit is enforced. There is also, I believe, one county in England where for many years there has been no prosecution and there again I do not think there are any more accidents.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

There are not so many cars perhaps.

§ LORD RAGLAN

Oh, yes there are. In many parts of the country this proposal in the Bill will not mean so radical a change as some of my noble friends seem to think.

§ THE EARL OF ONSLOW

There is one point which I should like to mention which has not yet been mentioned. I think there are countries abroad where there is no speed limit, and what happens, I think, is that people are rather inclined to break records in getting from one point to another—to do, say, 600 miles in a day. I must say I do not think that is a desirable thing. If there were a speed limit they could not do it. I have looked carefully at Clause 13 and I do not think it would cover that. My noble friend behind me suggested that the rate of driving all over the country would rise if we did not have a speed limit. I think that is probably true, and that people would set out to make records, and I think your Lordships will agree that that would be undesirable.

§ EARL HOWE

The noble Earl opposite has put some questions to me.

§ EARL RUSSELL

No, I put them to myself.

§ EARL HOWE

Perhaps I might claim the indulgence of your Lordships' House to answer the questions. As far as speed limits are concerned, personally I have observed or disregarded them as much in the past as the fortunate possessor of Motor Car A 1. If I might, I should like to suggest that if the noble Earl cannot accept my Amendment or the Amendment of the noble Viscount he might perhaps consider whether some sort of recommendation to this effect could not be included with advantage in the code which the Minister proposes to issue.

§ LORD ATKIN

I feel a little difficulty in seeing how we can determine whether a speed limit is desirable or not upon the actual proposal made in this Amendment, because I for my part am quite able to appreciate the point of view of those who say they think there ought to be a speed limit of some kind and yet may entirely object to the proposal of this Amendment. Certainly it seems to me that—unfortunately not for the first time—we have a proposal for a new criminal offence made in a way which is quite contrary to the spirit in which we generally provide for criminal offences. It is proposed that now and for the future there shall be the criminal offence of driving to the danger of the public and in certain circumstances the onus 1296 will be thrown upon the accused person of proving that he is innocent of that particular offence. I think that is wrong and I venture to suggest that the real objection to this Amendment is that it mixes up the question of the speed limit with the question of dangerous driving.

I had hoped, and I still hope, that as a result of passing this Bill there will be a new era in respect of the way in which people enforce the law as to dangerous driving and in saying that I particularly refer to courts of summary jurisdiction. In the past they have been careless and lax in respect of that offence, which is a very serious one, and I hope that in the future prosecutions will be more numerous, the attention of the police will be directed more to this offence, apart from any question of the speed limit, and punishment will be tightened up. I am quite sure that benches of magistrates have not in the past been severe enough in eases of dangerous driving, and I agree with what has been said that in some courts magistrates have taken the view—to my mind an entirely fallacious one—that there cannot be dangerous driving unless some person has been actually endangered at the time. That seems to me to be entirely wrong. I have always taken the view that the reckless driver who drives round a blind corner or up a hill with a blind brow is a very serious offender against the public interest and ought to be dealt with very seriously indeed. It is pure accident, in cases of that kind, that the man has not committed manslaughter. It is pure chance whether there was somebody round that corner or just beyond the brow of the hill. He takes the risk and, to my mind, he ought to be dealt with very seriously. You will never get magistrates to view the case from that aspect so long as the question of dangerous driving is mixed up with the entirely different question of whether or not a person has committed a breach of the speed limit. In itself the speed limit has no connection with the public danger.

You will observe that by this Amendment— Any person who drives a motor vehicle at a speed greater than the speed specified in the First Schedule of this Act as the maximum speed in relation to a vehicle of that class or description shall be deemed to have been guilty of dangerous driving as 1297 hereinafter defined unless he can show that in the actual circumstances of the case such greater speed could not involve danger to the public. This involves the whole question of the speed limit, so that the magistrate will have to consider cases of a man driving a heavy lorry who is charged with exceeding twenty-two miles an hour, or a person driving a light van at thirty-two miles an hour or of somebody else driving at twenty-seven miles an hour. The court will have to assume that the man was guilty of dangerous driving unless he can prove that he had not endangered the public. That seems to me to be a very unfortunate state of things. It is confusing the speed limit with the entirely different question of driving to the public danger, and the result will be that the attention that ought to be directed to serious eases of dangerous driving will be deflected again to the question of the speed limit, which is much less important.

There is one other point to which I should like to call the attention of the Committee. It constantly happens in practice that a man charged with exceeding the speed limit will admit that it was quite true that he was driving at thirty-seven miles an hour, or whatever it may be. He pleads guilty and leaves it to the magistrate to impose a fine. But, if this Amendment is agreed to, if he is charged with exceeding the speed limit, in every case he may find himself convicted of dangerous driving unless he appears in court and proves a negative. This would impose a very serious burden upon him. I hope that in the interests of the country and in the interests of this Bill, which, I think, has made a clear distinction between the speed limit and dangerous driving, we shall concentrate on dangerous driving. Do not let us mix it up with the question of the speed limit. Driving at any speed may be evidence of dangerous driving, but do not let us mix it up with some statutory speed limit. I venture to suggest that it would be a very grave misfortune if we did any such thing, and accordingly, whether we have a speed limit or not, I hope that the House will decide against the Amendment of the noble Viscount.

§ VISCOUNT BRENTFORD

There is one point that has not been mentioned in regard to the speed limit. As the noble Earl will remember from the speech that 1298 I made on the Second Reading, I am not an advocate of high speed. I felt very considerable diffidence before I agreed to the proposal to eliminate the speed limit from the Bill. What I think caused me to agree to that proposal was the real difficulty of enforcing a speed limit. Whether you make it twenty or thirty-five or forty miles an hour, as my noble friend Lord Howe wants to make it, you can enforce it only by what are commonly called police traps. If the House now, after twenty years, is going to consider the question over again and definitely decide on a particular speed—let us say forty miles an hour—it must be that Parliament definitely decides that this speed limit is to be obeyed. It is quite impossible that we should pass a speed limit and not ask the police of the country to see that it is properly observed. One of my noble friends behind me has told the Committee of two countries that he knows where there is no speed limit in operation.

As your Lordships know, I was responsible for the administration of the police for some years and, from the knowledge that I have, I say that it is quite impossible to enforce a speed limit of any kind as it should be enforced with anything like the present numbers of police. All over the country the police are doing their utmost to cope with the ordinary duties that fall upon them, and if you are going to enforce a speed limit, as it has not been enforced for the last ten years, you will have to have an enormous number of policemen in addition to those you have at present to enforce the limit by the only possible means—namely, police traps. If you are going to do that, you will place a very heavy additional expense upon the ratepayers and upon the Government. Let me say at once what you are going to do. You are going to do what you did a few years ago—namely, to render the police more unpopular. There is no doubt whatever, as I said in a speech in the other House some years ago when the police of the country were passing through a clouded period, that a great deal of their unpopularity was due to the fact that in certain districts they were compelled, quite rightly, to enforce a speed limit which was not in accordance with public opinion at the time. As one who has been responsible for the police, I hate to see them engaged in a duty 1299 which has not the approval of the great mass of the people behind it.

I put it to your Lordships that, if you decide on a speed limit—decide if you like—you must be faced with the fact that you have to enforce it. Can you do so? Many of your Lordships are magistrates, many are on standing joint committees or are responsible for the administration of the law, and know exactly the position of the police forces in the counties. Are you prepared to go down to your counties and county benches and standing joint committees and say that this speed limit of forty miles an hour, or whatever it is, is to be enforced, that Parliament has decided the whole question over again and that, in the interests of public morality, you have to enforce it? I am sure your Lordships know that nothing is worse than to have an Act of Parliament, particularly a modern Act of Parliament passed after full consideration, if it is not, or perhaps cannot be, enforced.

I should like to add how entirely I agree with the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Atkin. Some years ago, when I was addressing the Automobile Association—I resigned the Chairmanship of that body when I became a Minister—I warned its members that if they asked for the abolition of the speed limit, they would be subjecting themselves to a much more serious position. At whatever speed a motorist drives, if he drives dangerously it is right and proper that he should be most severely punished, and I believe that my noble friend will admit that is the right line. The main argument I have in opposing the Amendment is to ask your Lordships, are you going to enforce it or not? I do not believe anybody ought to Vote for the reimposition of a new speed limit unless he is prepared in his own county and on his own bench to see it carried out.

§ THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

I only want to make sure of one point which is of interest to all those who, like myself, are constantly on the road. I was much impressed by what my noble friend Earl Russell said about the mental effect of a speed limit which induces a driver to suppose that, if he is driving within that limit, he is driving safely. Why does not that apply equally to the speed limits which 1300 are specified in this Bill for other classes of motor vehicles than the ordinary kind of car? Surely the effect of each of these provisions of a speed limit must be to induce the drivers of the different classes of vehicles to suppose that, if they keep within those limits, they are driving safely. Whereas the whole argument of my noble friend Lord Russell was that it was very dangerous to make anybody suppose that observance of any limit whatever was necessarily safe.

Similarly, I should have thought that the tendency of retaining these different speed limits would be to induce magistrates to come to the conclusion that, if a driver of one or other of these specified classes of vehicles kept within the speed limits in the schedule, it would rebut any charge that he had been driving dangerously. I can understand entirely abolishing the speed limit and relying entirely upon the charge of dangerous driving. I can also understand retaining the speed limit everywhere. What I cannot understand is that you retain it in all these other classes of vehicles and abolish it in the case of the drivers of private cars. My own feeling, deepened by the tendency of this debate, is that probably the wisest thing is no longer to rely on speed limits of any kind but to induce a state of public opinion that calls for vigilance and care on the part of motorists and that insists on the part of magistrates that the least tendency towards dangerous driving should be severely punished.

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I do not wish to detain your Lordships but I should like to say a few words on the course of the debate. First of all with regard to the speech of my noble friend Lord Atkin, I really was very much interested by it. I have the greatest respect for him and I could not follow or agree with any single sentence he uttered. He began by saying it was a very wicked thing indeed to throw the onus of proof upon the accused. Surely, it is the commonest thing in the world, once a prima facie case has been proved against somebody in a number of different offences, for him to have to prove that in point of fact, though that was true, it did not amount to the offence with which he was charged. My knowledge of the law is infinitely inferior 1301 to his but my recollection is that in a great number of cases—in connection with adulteration for instance—that is the condition of the law and I have no doubt anybody more familiar with the law can give a great number of instances. It is applying no new principle but an ordinary principle, after proving a prima facie case, to ask the driver if he can show any kind of fact which proves that it does; not amount to causing danger to the public. Whether you accept the phrasing of Lord Sumner, which is very much better, or of myself, that is surely a very legitimate thing to do.

I press very strongly upon the noble Lord the great importance, even from his own point of view, of some such provision. He relies on dangerous driving. That is his great idea. He wants dangerous driving and a very severe penalty. I believe that is entirely wrong. It is not a question of very severe penalties. That has never been the way in which the law has been enforced. It has been enforced by certainty of punishment and not by very severe punishments and great uncertainty as to whether you are punished at all. The reckless man, if he thinks the chances are five to one against his being punished at all, will continue to be reckless and it does not make a great deal of difference to him whether the, penalty at the end is very severe or not. The thing is certainty of punishment and, if you rely on dangerous driving alone, you leave it in the greatest uncertainty possible. Dangerous driving is necessarily a matter of opinion. The noble Lord gave instances of going round a comer too fast, or on the wrong side, and things of that kind. Some people will think it depends upon the corner. There are extreme cases which everybody would agree are dangerous but, unless you lay down particulars to some extent, you will find the greatest uncertainty and variety as to what will happen in each particular case. You will encourage people by giving greater probability of their being able to escape. The noble Lord wanted to know whether speed may be dangerous driving. That has, been the condition of the law up till now. Dangerous driving has been one offence; exceeding the speed limit has been another. Is he satisfied? No. He wants to abolish speed as an 1302 element of dangerous driving. He wants to go further than the noble Earl, who says that speed is to be an element of dangerous driving, and to say that speed should not be an element.

He went on to say how difficult it would be to enforce my Amendment with its various speeds. That is a difficulty with the Bill as it is drawn. It is a very great difficulty which the noble Earl has said ought to be dealt with to some extent when he comes to the Schedule by reducing the number of categories. I do not want to go through all that has been said. With what has fallen from the most reverend Primate I entirely agree. You can rely on the conception of dangerous driving alone or on the conception of driving above a certain limit, but there is a third course, which is the one suggested in this Amendment—namely, that you should not regard exceeding the speed limit as conclusive but merely as prima facie evidence of dangerous driving. That seems to me a provision in the Amendment with which my noble friend Lord Brentford did not deal. He treated it simply as an Amendment in order to enforce a speed limit. It is not that. I quite agree with him that, if it was that, it would be open to the objection he raised, that you would have to have a large force of police to enforce it. In this Amendment that is not so. You concentrate the mind of the driver on what is safe. That is the whole point of the Amendment and you do so much more than you do under the Bill as it stands.

I shall not detain your Lordships any longer I only want to say one word as to what fell from my noble friend Earl Russell. He said that there is no such thing as a safe speed. I agree, but that is not the defence of his Bill. As the most reverend Primate pointed out, he relies on particular speeds as safe speeds or otherwise as scheduled for the great mass of vehicles other than these favoured and privileged private motor cars. I know that several noble Lords have taken me to task for suggesting that is unduly favouring a particular section of the population. I do not want to press that unduly, but it is a fact which your Lordships ought to bear in mind that in the main most of the people who will be freed from the speed limit will be the rich people of the country. You cannot get 1303 over it. I do not know whether it will be right or wrong, but it will be the fact.

I cannot help feeling that fundamentally, although Lord Russell did not use the expression, he has still got in his mind what I have often heard him state, that speed is not in itself dangerous. It is really a fallacy. It is a fallacy which I am surprised should have taken in so acute an intellect as that of my noble friend. Of course speed is not dangerous in itself. That is to say, if you take a car into the middle of the Sahara Desert you can drive it as fast as you like without danger, except to yourself, but it is much more dangerous, in the kind of conditions which you find on the ordinary English road to drive at sixty rather than thirty or twenty miles an hour. There cannot be any question about it. The case which you have to meet is the unforeseen danger, and you can stop much more readily, and take measures to avoid serious danger, if you are going slowly than if you are going fast, and if, unhappily, you do not succeed in avoiding an accident, you do less damage according to the slower speed at which you are going.

When you say that speed is not in itself dangerous, that is true, but no more is careless driving dangerous, or driving when you are drunk. It all depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. If you are in a desert you can drive at any speed, and be blind drunk, and yet do no harm to anybody except yourself. Speed is an element of danger, and nothing else. I do believe that it is an element. Much more than that, I believe that 99 per cent., or at any rate a very considerable proportion of accidents, are due in the end to driving too fast—not exceeding, I quite agree, this or that limit, but driving too fast. It is the general cause of accidents. Those who drive fast ought to know that they are encouraging, and deliberately encouraging, the fearful toll of accidents which take place. That is the whole truth. The parts of the roads where people in fact drive fast are the commonest places for accidents to occur. It is not in the crowded parts of the towns, where they have to drive slowly, but in the relatively open places, where they can get up a good speed. It is for that reason that I say it is perfectly legitimate and reasonable to say that speed ought to be 1304 recognised as an element in dangerous, driving, and unless we are going to leave it to be a matter of opinion, with all the uncertainty and consequent ineffectiveness of the law, then it is reasonable to say, broadly speaking, that on the roads of England at any rate you should not drive at more than 30 miles an hour, unless you are perfectly certain that you are not doing so to the danger of the public. For these reasons I feel that I must press my Amendment to a Division.

§ EARL RUSSELL

I am not at all surprised that the logical mind of the most rev. Primate put a question to me as to the difference between the speed limit for heavy cars and no limit for light cars. I shall be perfectly ready to develop that subject when the time comes, but I will merely say this now, that the conditions are altogether different. First of all those cars are generally driven by more or less responsible people, and the vast majority are under control. Secondly, and quite equally important, we have to regard, in connection with those vehicles and their lower speed, the wear and tear of the roads. That is one of the reasons, and a most important reason, for the lower speeds for these heavy vehicles. They do an infinite amount of damage to the roads when travelling at higher speed. I really rose in order to make a suggestion to the Committee, in the interests of convenience. Lord Cecil's Amendment has apparently a certain want of friends in its own substance, and I think that if the Committee would like to express its opinion as to the speed limit it might be well perhaps if we first negatived the noble Viscount's Amendment, and then took the question of speed limit on the next Amendment by Lord Howe. That will give us a clear-cut issue on the question of a speed limit.

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I shall certainly divide on my Amendment.

§ THE LORD CHAIRMAN

I will put the question in this form, namely: Clause 10, page 12, line 34, that line 34 stand part of the Bill.

§ EARL RUSSELL

It seems to me that this has been decided by the last Division. Of course, we shall resist this Amendment.

§ EARL RUSSELL

We certainly had thought this Amendment was consequential, but if the noble Viscount puts it as a substantive point I think the short answer is that, first of all, it has been the law now for a very long time that there should not be a disqualification on a first or second conviction for a speed offence; and, secondly, we do not think it is a proper penalty to impose, or that a mere excess of the speed in the Schedule is in itself a thing which should properly lead to a man being disqualified, unless he made a habit and practice of doing it. I am afraid we cannot accept the Amendment.

§ LORD ATKIN

The noble Viscount might consider the question of whether the Amendment of Lord Banbury, which follows this, is preferable. I can quite understand, of course, that in the case of a first offence it would not be right to make a man subject to disqualification, but in the case of a second offence it might be rather different. After all, 1307 now, for the first time as I understand, we are going to make a real speed limit. In the past it has been illusory; for the future the noble Earl and all of us desire that, where there is a speed limit, it should really be enforced. If that is so, I think there is some advantage in giving to the magistrates an option—they certainly ought not to be compelled. But if a man, say, within a fortnight is convicted of exceeding the speed limit again, the magistrate should have an option of suspending the licence for a time—quite a limited time.

§ EARL RUSSELL

The noble Lord, Lord Banbury, has already twitted me with my fondness for following precedent, and this Act has been in force for many years. We are not advised that there will be any great advantage in changing it. If the House thinks strongly about it, and thinks that a power of disqualification should be given for a second offence, I should be quite willing to leave it to your Lordships. But it is an undesirable and unnecessary change.

§ VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD

I think it would be better for me to withdraw my Amendment, because it will be better to take the discussion on Lord Banbury's Amendment which follows.

§ EARL HOWE

It seems to me that this Amendment will refer exclusively to the livelihood of the working man.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

Why should we be killed by working men?

§ EARL HOWE

If the noble Lord will forgive me for a few minutes, it seems to me it would be a very severe penalty indeed to say that because, say, a light goods vehicle had exceeded a specified limit more than once, the man driving it should lose his licence automatically. It would probably be his only means of livelihood, at any rate, if he lose his job it is very difficult to get another in these days. I submit that we ought not to agree to the Amendment.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

May I correct my noble friend? The omission of these words will not render a man automatically liable to lose his licence on the second offence, but it gives the bench an opportunity of saying: "You have committed an offence once and now you shall not have your licence." If it is not left out the bench cannot do that.

§ EARL RUSSELL