Agreement on safety
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T was emphasized in the Commons last week, by Mr. Stephen Swingler, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, that the Government wanted to see an agreement about the safety of commercial vehicles in operation over as large an area as possible.
Echoing words spoken earlier by a Foreign Office Minister, he said the Government would use such influence as was open to it to secure this.
Mr. Swingler was replying to Mr. Edward Milnes (Labour, Blyth) who had asked for the Minister of Transport to initiate discussions with all European countries with a view to drawing up legally enforceable regulations to protect holidaymakers travelling abroad with Continental coach operators.
The Parliamentary Secretary told him that all European countries had safety requirements which applied to their own vehicles and to those of other countries when, running within their boundaries.
International requirements for vehicles and drivers generally were prescribed by the Convention on Road Traffic, 1949. A European Agreement to regulate the hours of driving and rest periods of drivers of commercial vehicles in international road transport was drawn up in 1962, but had not yet come into force.