New U.K. Road Penalties Attacked

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30157, 14 June 1963, Page 9

New U.K. Road Penalties Attacked

REVISED penalties for driving offences brought into force in Britain recently by the Minister of Transport (Mr E. Marples) have been criticised by British daily newspapers, trade journals, and motoring journals. Writers have described the new penalties as savage, vicious, and malicious. The authoritative magazine, “Motor Sport,” says Mr Marples has gone too far, and that unless the Conservative Party gives him “. . . the push instead of a peerage ... it may soon find itself out of power.” The motoring writer, Robert Glenton in the “Sunday Express” also says Mr Marples has gone too far. In what has been described as a “fighting attack” on the Minister, Mr Glenton also criticises the British Automobile Association and the Royal Automobile Club for their "apathy.” These organisations have been described as “. . . content to accept your subscription and sit back and do nothing.” Leaflet In a leading article, "Motor Sport” describes a leafllet distributed from British post offices announcing the penalties. The leaflet told of the wider use of disqualification and “. . . told the morbid tale of nearly 7000 killed on our roads every year, another 350,000 injured, while omitting to inform the public who will read this leaflet that inadequate roads are the major cause of this tragic record, that motorists have paid hundreds of times over for better roads that were never built because the Road Fund has been continually raided by successive governments.” The article says that the accident rate in terms of vehicle miles run shows a creditable decrease. As a result of the new penalties, which provide automatic disqualification for any three convictions in three years, "... even the least accidentprone drivers are unlikely to have their licences in 1966 unless a reasonable modicum of luck is with them.”

For some time many of the penalties imposed by British magistrates for motoring offences have been undey heavy fire from both journals and newspapers, and the editorial article quotes three recent cases as the sort of justice it feels motorists can expect

A driver who stopped to help a blind man across the road inadvertently stopped his car between a pedestrian crossing and its studs, which in Britain show the closest one may park. He was fined £5, even though the studs were hidden by snow. Another driver who inadvertently splashed two pedes-

trians was fined £3, and ordered to pay £7 7s costs. However, a member of Parliament who used a car without a licence was let off with a "compromise penalty” of £l. “The first six disqualification clauses are fair,” the editorial article says, “providing casual witnesses and ignorant police and magistrates do not regard as dangerous driving manoeuvres which are safe and entirely permissible when performed by skilled, experienced drivers. “But the remaining 20 penalties include offences any driver in modem traffic on our inadequate roads can commit so easily that disqualification is altogether too harsh for a first offence, or for three of the more trivial offences in three years. "Let it be remembered that no country can properly control its affairs when an appreciable proportion of its populatioh regards the police as its enemy and its laws as antiquated, vicious, and unfair. “We say no penalty is too severe for habitually dangerous drivers, drunk and drugged drivers, and car thieves. But we also say fight for a square deal for the majority of decent drivers and road-users who can all too easily break at least 10 of the new disqualification clauses without being careless, let alone criminal. This time let us show Marples, whose bright ideas do not seem to reduce accidents, that he has gone too far. . . .” Organisation "Motor Sport” also reports on the formation of an organisation with the avowed intention of taking every possible step to try to obtain relief from ", . . the increasing restrictions placed on the freedom of the motorist, and to provide in selected cases legal representation.” The magazine says it will publish regular reports on the organisation and its activities and urges its readers and their friends to join. This is far from being the first time Mr Marples has come under heavy fire from newspapers and magazines. He has several times been described as the most unpopular Minister of Transport Britain has ever had. His policies, magazines have said, have served only to set road-users and police against each other, and have failed completely to show any worth-while results. "Killers" The magazine, “The Motor,” has also attacked the new penalties, particulariy referring to a statement by the Minister that some of the offences were “killer offences.” It says that by the Minister’s reckoning “. . . the man who contravenes a speed limit, or takes a motor vehicle without authority is admitted at first to have done nothing worth more than a fine and an endorsement. “But if he commits the offence a third time within three years and then gets into the driving seat of a car, he becomes by definition a killer.

'The Minister has always had a greater flair for headlines than for logic. 'The Motor” stands behind any organisation making a positive contribution to safer roads and safe driving. But let us keep bogeyman threats for children, and hope that one day this country may have a Minister with a better appreciation of the adult mind.”

In a further leading article, “The Motor” says:—

“From today a motorist can lose his licence for a period if he is found guilty three times in three years of a number of potentially dangerous but, in some circumstances, almost trivial offences. “It seems to us that the motorist and the police are to be thrown into close conflict by these new regulations. Unlike almost any other offence a great many driving infringements must be judged on the opinions of witnesses

and not upon facts, and in most instances the case is reduced to the word of a responsible citizen against that of the police, with the magistrates pronouncing on a matter about which they may know very little. A case which we recently observed resulted in an expert driver with many years’ faultless driving behind him losing his licence. In court there was completely conflicting evidence but the prosecution had a most accomplished lawyer and the driver lost. On the evidence he might just as easily have won. “This is not an isolated case. Every week we hear of instances where motorists feel that they have not seen justice being done. In the past this has led simply to a longfelt grudge; now with the constant threat of disqualification looming ahead it must result in a sharp worsening of relations between the police, with their vested interest in securing prosecutions, and the business motorist, with his vested interest in keeping clear of the many offences that he may sometimes unwittingly commit.” Writing in the latest issue of “The Motor,” Mr Gordon Wilkins points out the new regulations give the courts power to disqualify a motorist for life at his first offence. It is entirely at the discre-

tion of the court, and there is no limit to the disqualification for the first offence.

“Such ferocity towards the driver who makes his first mistake probably has no parallel in any other country,” Mr Wilkins says. He points out one cannot obey a law one does not know, and attacks the “mass of legal debris which passes for British road law.” Speaking of Mr Manples’s press handouts and leaflets, he says the sight of Mr Marples trying to explain the laws is “ . . . one to make the angels weep.” Offences for which licences can l>e suspended include failing to observe specified traffic signs, driving while a learner on a motorway, parking beyond the approach studs of a pedestrian crossing, using a defective vehicle, and many others.