No Alteration to Penalties for Hours Offences
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14R. ERNEST MARPLES, the Minister M of Transport, last week rejected the idea that minimum penalties should be laid down for road hauliers who force their drivers into working excessive hours. Maximum, but not minimum, penalties for hours and records offences were laid down by statute, he said in the Commons, and within those limits the courts decided what was fitting in
individual cases. • He did not think he would be justified in seeking, contrary to modern practice, to prescribe a minimum fine or term of imprisonment.
Mrs. Harriet Slater (Labour, Stoke North), who had questioned the Minister, agreed that large fines had been imposed on some firms and some licences had been withdrawn, but she claimed that large numbers of firms were escaping with very small fines. This they did not mind at all, because they could make the profit through longer hours and the greater amount of material carried.
She asked the Minister to do something about this, either through publicity or by fixing a minimum fine.
It was preferable that the courts should be free to grade the penalties according to. the circumstances of each particular case, replied the Minister. If the minimum fine was fixed too high the tendency would be, if someone thought it was excessively high, to find the person not guilty.
LORRY REAR LIGHTS—NO ACCIDENT FIGURES
I T was not possible to say how many accidents had been caused in the past two years by inadequate lighting on heavy goods vehicles, stated the Minister of Transport, when he was asked for the figures in the Commons last week.