Dangerous Driving

James Duddridge Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) has made some moving points. I recall being 16 and offering to help with the harvest. I was not used to the hard work and ripped my hands to shreds within a few hours. I was completely useless at baling hay and so was given the job of driving the tractor. I had no training, as I had not even started learning to drive a car. I think that 16-year-olds, like me at the time, need that greater degree of protection.

I also remember in 2004 offering to buy someone who was campaigning for me a beer. He expressed surprise, because I had absolutely no idea that he was 16. I bought him a diet Coke and said, “Not only can I not buy you a beer, but you cannot even drive.” He replied, “No, but I can fly.” He had a private licence and flew out of Southend airport. My point is that there should perhaps be a review of consistency and risk, as well as about what should be done.

This has been a great debate. It has not been difficult for you to keep order, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it has been difficult in other ways. I know that I shy away from some debates in the House of Commons that I would find too emotional. It is very brave of you to be here today, so thank you for that.

The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) mentioned that this has been a very unpartisan debate. The very moving comments made about Burton or Bolton might have been made about anywhere by Members on both sides of the House.

I was particularly perturbed by the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), who talked not about individual but corporate actions in relation to the responsibility of schools. That made me reflect on schools in Rochford and Southend East. State schools in Southend have very good protections for passengers from errant vehicles, but that cannot be said about private schools. We should perhaps look not only at private schools, to make sure that they are treated in a similar way to public ones, but at nurseries. As the boundary between the definitions of public and private schools merges in the form of free schools, such protections may become even more important.

I want to speak in today’s debate because of a tragic incident that happened in 2009 at 9.45 at night only a few hundred yards away from where I live. With my young children, it had been a particularly difficult day and—unimaginably, once I had found out what had happened so close to my house—I slept through the entire incident, and was unable to provide any support at the time. Subsequently, I hope that I have been able to do a few things.

The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) struggled to find the right words about this being a “good” debate, but we should not shy away from using such a word. Clearly, we all have horrific examples to bring to the House, but perhaps some good can come from those examples. That is why I am speaking about what happened at 9.45 pm on Friday 6 March 2009.

A 17-year-old pupil from Southend grammar school was driving a Citroen C1. That evening, there had been a birthday in the area. He had only recently passed his driving test, and he was showing off. He was attempting a handbrake turn to impress a group of about 14 of his friends. The police now estimate that he was travelling at about 47 mph in a residential road. He simply did not have the skills to control the vehicle, and he hit all the teenagers. Teenagers who gather and go from place to place for a birthday celebration tend to chat; getting from A to B is as much a part of the birthday celebrations as the actual outing to a location. Some of the individuals were knocked through a garden fence, and others were thrown as high as 15 feet into the air. The noise was evidently enormous, despite its not rousing me from my sleep.

Thankfully, the accident happened opposite a doctors’ surgery, and several of the doctors lived in the surrounding area. The fact that they were able to get to the scene within minutes lessened the final impact on those people. Fortuitously, some of the students or individuals who could get up off the ground and help had recently been through first aid training. Again, that may very well have saved a few people.

Ten youngsters were defined by the hospital as seriously injured, of whom eight had head injuries and broken limbs, and two had significant physical injuries. Eleanor McGrath, who was 14—she is the individual to whom I particularly wish to draw attention—was fatally injured and, sadly, her life support machine was switched off after the accident. Another individual, a young man of 16, has been profoundly physically and mentally impacted. A whole generation of people from Southend have been affected.

Although no one would wish such an event on anyone, the accident has had a profound and positive impact on a generation of people in Southend. Trying to find some rhyme or reason behind the event, Eleanor’s friends decided that they wanted to do something. They launched an awareness campaign called Driving with Grace—Eleanor’s middle name was Grace—and they sent a DVD to all schools in the United Kingdom. The campaign received support from our local Essex police and the Safer Roads Foundation. Indeed, many secondary schools still use the DVD now, and Eleanor’s friends received an award for their work from the police in 2010. Road crashes are the most common form of death and serious injury for young people. The Driving with Grace campaign seeks to highlight the importance, for someone driving, of thinking about what they are doing before they act.

Under-25s make up only a tenth of the population, but a quarter of the number of drivers killed on the roads, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, so they are clearly a massive danger. Far too many people, when they pop out to drive, do not feel that they are in a powerful weapon that they risk killing with: they have no idea of such possibilities. As young men, they feel invincible. I think that I can say that; I am sure young women also feel invincible behind the wheel. In my experience of observing drivers in my part of the country, Southend, I am certainly aware that there is a particular problem with young drivers.

Eleanor’s parents have engaged in extensive research over several years. They did not leap to react immediately, but have thought deliberatively about what needs to be done and have tried to be as constructive as possible. When people suffer such tragedies, they sometimes react by expecting absolutely everything to be done, including by encroaching on people’s liberties and incurring costs, but Eleanor’s parents have been very responsible. Specifically, they believe in the graduated driving licence, which was mentioned earlier—that a compulsory P plate should be displayed for three years after someone passes their test, signalling a probation period for new drivers.

People who have just passed their driving test can feel on top of the world—invincible—and it is a little less macho to have a big “P” on the back of their 1-litre banger or on a new car. I hope that that might change attitudes. I am sure that when hon. Members see a learner, they give them a little extra space. If they cut us up by accident, stall or are a little over-cautious, we think, “Well, I was there once.” The moment people pass their driving test and the L plate is removed, however, we expect them to be equally competent as a driver who has perhaps driven for 20, 30 or 40 years and passed an advanced driving test. The probationary plates not only allow other people to exercise a little more care around such drivers, but demonstrate to their peer group that they are still young adults and are still learning.

Graduated driving licence systems are in place in several states in the US, and in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France and Northern Ireland. We do not need to make up a new system to find a proven one that works. I call on the Government to introduce, initially, a simple three-year system, but there are several other options. In different areas, features of systems include compulsory logging of the initial 120 hours of driving experience, a minimum period of driving on certain types of roads or a two-stage probationary period, which in some places is recognised by the use of P1 and P2 plates. In some places, there are peer passenger restrictions, so that only a certain number of people of a certain age are allowed in the car after dark or late at night. I urge caution in considering that option, because it would have other implications such as young people being left on the streets. There are certainly many options for the Government to consider if they do not want a simple three-year probationary period.

The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), has been very good on this issue. I visited him with Eleanor’s parents at the beginning of the month and left him with a probationary plate to put on his desk as a reminder of Eleanor and of what I expect of him, which is to bring forward a solution. I am reassured to see the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who is a very able Minister, on the Front Bench. I know that he will take these matters just as seriously. I ask him to speak to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, to ensure that these issues are joined up.

Being a wise Minister, I am sure that my hon. Friend will not have a knee-jerk reaction, leap to the Dispatch Box and announce 10 of the excellent ideas that we have heard today as Government policy, however tempting that may be. All too often with this type of debate, changes drip out subsequently. I ask him not to write to Members who have contributed to the debate straight afterwards, but to write to us six months to the day and say, “After calm reflection, this is what has happened over the past six months as a result of the debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and the contributions that were made by Members across the House.” That would be a worthwhile initiative and I hope that the Minister will consider taking part in it.