Tighter Regulations on Roadworthiness
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MEMBERS pressed in the Commons this week for a scheme to ensure that vehicles involved in serious accidents should not be allowed on the roads again until they had been properly tested.
They were told by Mr. Fraser that he was considering, in consultation with the Home Secretary, whether the Road Traffic Act—which made it an offence to use, sell or offer for sale an unroadworthy vehicle—could be more effectively applied, especially in relation to vehicles which had been repaired and sold afier an accident.
There was no power under the Vehicles (Excise) Act, he said, to withdraw a registration book so long as the vehicle for which it was issued still existed, nor could a licence be refused on payment of the tax due.
While examining the existing safe
guards, said the Minister, he would bear in mind the suggestion put forward by Mr. John Rankin (Labour, Govan) that cars deemed by insurance companies to be damaged beyond repair were not brought into use again until their roadworthiness was guaranteed.
Accidents and Dangerous Loads rrHE Minister of Transport said in the
Commons that national road accident statistics did not tell how many accidents involving badly loaded vehicles had occurred because of falling goods. But he added that in 1963—the latest period for which figures were available—there were 5,241 prosecutions for using vehicle5 when dangerously loaded.