Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (Penalty Points) (Amendment) Order 2016

Viscount Falkland Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O’Cathain (Con)]

My Lords, has the technology developed to the extent that people can ensure that an incoming call does not stop them driving? Perhaps there could be a voicemail on the telephone in the car that does not allow you to take the call while driving—going back to the point about the engine being turned off—rather like we have at home, where we can see who is calling. It must be feasible. I am sure that people feel compelled to answer incoming calls, whereas if we are sensible enough we do not use the phone for outgoing calls while driving.

[Viscount Falkland (CB)]

My Lords, using a handheld telephone in the car, unlike wearing a seat belt, is a breach of good manners on the road. People apparently feel empowered nowadays to use a mobile telephone at any time they feel they need to communicate with someone. If the House will indulge me, I will relate my own experience with my 21 year-old goddaughter. I took her and her parents to the theatre in Paris. Just as the singer who was performing that evening came on stage and the lights went down, my goddaughter saw fit to send a text to someone which created a light on her machine. I quickly reminded her that she may upset a few people with that light and so would she please turn it off. She ignored me and went on texting, so I reminded her again. People were looking around and getting rather upset. She still did not take any notice of me. I then said to her, “For God’s sake, turn the thing off!”. This again she failed to respond to. I had reached my breaking point so I grabbed her mobile and threw it into the audience across the aisle. I saw it bounce off the head of what could have been a Frenchman or indeed anyone and then back into the aisle. She was totally astonished by my behaviour. Her aunt who was also with us said, “Well done. I have been longing to do that for a long time”. My goddaughter, who is now 25, told me the other day after I asked whether her telephone was the same one that I had thrown into audience that it was. She said, “That was a salutary lesson and I have never forgotten it”.

I do not think that education is required, as the Minister has just said; rather, it is lessons in manners, which could extend to other activities undertaken by drivers. To my mind, what causes a lot of accidents nowadays is pure bad manners and self-indulgence.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of the FIA Foundation, one of the biggest international road safety organisations; and for 10 years I chaired the Commission on Global Road Safety, which had a lot to do with establishing in the United Nations the Decade of Action for Road Safety—we are at the midpoint in that. My memory is as long as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, on the great debate that we have had on road safety. I can recall many debates in my early days in the House of Commons fighting against the forces of the left and of the right who were against implementing the compulsory use of seat belts, as referred to by my noble friend Lord Kinnock. A combination of Dennis Skinner and Enoch Powell made sure that the House of Commons never came to a conclusion, and it was Lord Nugent of Guildford, a former Conservative Minister of Transport, who proposed a new clause in this House that revolutionised the way we drive cars and which was then accepted in the House of Commons. Virtually overnight the number of organs available for transplant in this country declined to a critical level because most of them had come from the casualties of road accidents.

I am tempted down the road taken by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. This is a useful move forward and perhaps it will get some attention, but it does not go nearly far enough. People who use mobile phones in cars are a danger to themselves and much more to others, so the deterrent effect is going to have to be important.