Road Safety

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) in what has been a powerful debate.

Cars can kill, and I start by telling the story of two Sarahs. Sarah Childs, 22 years old, crossed Walsall Road with her 20-year-old sister and was mown down by a driver doing 64 miles per hour. Sarah died instantly. Bizarrely, the driver got four years in prison and a four-year driving ban, and he started serving the ban on his first day in prison. We campaigned together with Avril, the grieving mother, to get the law changed, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), who agreed to the law changes so that, in future, the prison sentence and the driving ban are served consecutively.

Sarah Giles, a 20-year-old much loved by her family, was killed by a speeding car fleeing a police chase. A car flew through the air, as her car was rammed at high speed. John and Sharon Giles, her loving parents, are absolutely distraught over what has happened. Avril has come together with John and Sharon to say, “Why is it that the Government 13 months ago agreed that tougher penalties should in future apply for drivers who kill with a car and there has been no action yet taken?” Nothing will ever bring back their daughters, but they want at least to contribute towards ensuring that never again should anyone suffer as they have suffered.

I come then to the story of Poppy-Arabella Clarke, a wonderful little three-year-old girl who was crossing the Chester Road with her mother. She was on a pedestrian crossing when she was hit by a 72-year-old driver and killed instantly. The driver had been told twice in the previous three weeks, by a doctor and an optometrist, never to drive again, but he got behind the wheel of the car and as a consequence Poppy is dead. This raises fundamental issues that have not yet featured in this debate and which relate to drivers who can longer see safely behind the wheel. When people pass their driving test they take a 20-metre test. It is an 80-year-old test that was invented before the second world war, and it is completely out of kilter with the rest of Europe; we are one of only five countries that has this kind of test. We are also one of the very few countries that allows an instructor, as opposed to a doctor or an optometrist, to carry out the test before somebody gets their licence.

What is clear beyond any doubt is that action needs to be taken. There is an argument as to how we should proceed: should we have regular tests throughout people’s driving life, as they do in many continental countries in Europe; or should we have a test for those who renew their licence at 70? At the moment, people self-declare that their eyesight is sound when they renew their licence; there is no obligation for someone to have an independent third party carry out a test that says that they are safe to drive in future. Whether the test is staged throughout the driving life or at the age of 70 or beyond, there is a powerful case for the Government now to embrace changing the law so that we can ensure that people on the road are fit to be on the road and that they can drive safely. That is right in itself in order to avoid terrible accidents, the kind of which befell Poppy-Arabella Clarke, but it is also right because eye tests pick up a range of other problems that an individual may have, such as glaucoma.

In conclusion, for all that progress has been made over the years on a number of fronts, there is a simple, sad reality: too many innocent people still die on our roads. That is why I hope that the Minister says in responding to this debate that the Government will act on tougher penalties for those who kill with a car and that they are prepared seriously to examine in future having such an eyesight test, so that never again is a precious little three-year-old girl taken from her grieving parents.