Fight Against Disqualification Clause to Continue
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FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
MOVES are being made to continue the fight against the Road Traffic Bill's " three-offences-in-three-years " disqualification clause when the Bill comes before the Commons in the New Year. Lords Hawke, Derwent and Teynham had tabled an amendment to remove from the Bill, during the Report stage in the Lords, the whole sub-section dealing with this automatic penalty.
But Lord Derwent was understood to be ill and Lord Hawke arrived at the House five minutes too late to move the amendment which, due to an apparent misunderstanding between the remaining two peers, was therefore not taken.
Lord Hawke said later: may put it down again for the third reading, but l do not think there is anything the Upper House can do now.? apart from discussing our case. It is up to the Commons, and our reason for tabling the amendment was to draw their attention to this point of considerable principle."
Lord Hawke would have argued that, without discretion for magistrates, a driver would automatically lose his licence for three speeding offences in three years. " But commercial speed limits are such at the moment that they are unobservable, and the entire discretion as to whether a commercial driver loses his living is in the hands of the executive--the police," Lord Hawke said. "If they choose to take him up three
times in the period stated, he loses his livelihood. If the magistrate convicts, it does not matter what they think about the case, they are bound to disqualify."
Lords Hawke, Derwent and Teynham —the last is a former chairman of the A.A.—realize their amendment would have been doomed to defeat. But coming from three Conservatives representing considerable transport interests, it was designed to influence opinion on both sides of the lower House, and in the Government.
Referring to the Government's indication that speed limits would be revised to make the Bill more applicable, Lord Hawke added this further comment:— " It will still mean that the light van, such as the baker's van, will have a 40 m.p.h. limit, which seems absurd in view of the fact that, they are virtually the same as private cars these days."
An account of the Lords debate on the Report stage of the Bill appears on page 719