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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 15 Feb 1961

Vol. 186 No. 3

Road Traffic Bill, 1960—Second Stage.

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The Bill has two purposes: to reduce accidents and to secure a more efficient use of our road system. In 1960, there were 292 fatal accidents on our roads and 3,973 involving personal injury. Accidents involving material injury amounted to 3,066 in 1959, but it may be assumed that there were many more of this latter category which are not reported. Even if one takes into account the growth in the number of motor vehicles (now over 300,000), the fact that some accidents are unavoidable and the fact that very many are due not to any serious culpability on the part of road users but to a brief distraction or an honest error in judgment, there can be no doubt that a considerable number are without excuse. Indeed, when one realises the responsibility that rests on all road users, even the minor faults of inattention and poor judgment assume a more serious aspect. We may pride ourselves on our national traditions of courtesy and kindness, but no one can say that these traditions are evident in our behaviour on the road. The conclusion is inevitable, that all those responsible for training the citizens of the future, and parents most of all, must make more earnest endeavours to develop a full sense of civic duty in those under their care. I take this opportunity to appeal to all mature citizens, and in particular to parents and teachers, to take their responsibilities seriously in this regard so that by their words and example young people may become better aware of their duties and obligations.

The prime loss in road accidents is the wastage of human beings and the unnecessary suffering that results. The loss of the father of a family, the crippling for life of a promising child —these are a terrible price to pay for a moment's carelessness, or worse, for the momentary thrill of a burst of speed or "taking a chance". If this type of loss could be reduced, even fractionally, all our efforts would be justified.

The other loss is something we are inclined to forget. It is, of course, a secondary consideration but it is a very real loss nevertheless. The economic loss in the killing and maiming of productive human beings, in the destruction of valuable machines largely made from imported parts and materials, is something we cannot afford. It reflects itself in such things as high insurance rates, which affect the cost of transport, itself a significant item, affecting the cost of production and the cost of living, particularly in a country like Ireland where a large section of the population is so considerably dispersed.

There is a further economic loss due to traffic congestion, delays and inefficient vehicle operation. Calculations made both here and abroad show that the cost is very substantial, constituting a further charge that affects the cost of transport.

These are the considerations that justify the imposition of restrictions and other obligations on road users such as are proposed in this Bill. That is not to say that road traffic legislation will completely solve the problem. It must be attacked on all fronts. I have already mentioned the fundamental need for a new approach to social education. Road Safety propaganda must be maintained in those various forms that seem most likely to inform and influence the people's minds. In this regard I may mention that my Department, which has turned out quite a lot of material over the years, is at present issuing a series of leaflets on specific aspects of road behaviour and is making some short films on the same subjects. Here I would like to pay a tribute to the voluntary efforts of bodies such as the Safety First Association, who have kept plugging away at what to some is an unwelcome theme.

Road engineering is another weapon in the battle. The various devices available to the traffic engineer to assist and control traffic, road signs and markings, islands, pedestrian crossings, traffic lights and so on, can be of considerable value. Road improvements have been shown statistically to give the most positive return to date.

In some cases accidents occur on an improved road, and unthinking people immediately claim that the improvement has led to more speed and more accidents. The cold facts do not bear that out. For instance:

(a)accident statistics on the Bray road taken over a period of years showed that, mile for mile, the incidence was three times as heavy on the single carriageway sections as on the stretches of dual carriageway;

(b)accident statistics for a period of years in respect of two stretches of the trunk road passing through Roscrea showed that the improvement of a substantial stretch of road on one side of the town resulted in a striking reduction in accidents, while the number increased on a corresponding length of unimproved road on the other side of the town.

It stands to reason, of course, that divided carriageways which cut out all chance of a head-on collision, better camber which helps a vehicle to keep to its proper lane, removal of bad bends and gradients and of blind corners, wider roads, provision of shoulders to take a halted vehicle or to enable one to run off in safety, must make driving safer. The sound economic value of such works has been proved time and again.

I have now sketched quite briefly the background of this legislation. The proposals put forward in this Bill are those which seem to us to be most likely to be effective on the legislative side. They provide the machinery for training road users and for sifting out poor material, they provide stern penalties for infringements of the rules of the road and measures which will help in the enforcement of the law, and finally there are a number of provisions which will enable the responsible authorities to help the road user by securing better regulation of traffic. Here I may say that, being fully conscious that legislation without enforcement is worse than useless, I sought and got from the Minister for Justice his agreement that proper enforcement of the law is an important factor in road safety, and his assurance that the Garda Síochána will act on that basis.

After taking up office as Minister for Local Government, I turned as soon as I could to the problem of road traffic legislation. I found that, even in the period during which the proposals for legislation then on hands had been under consideration, the growth in traffic and the measure of the problem had increased substantially. I felt it my duty to go through the existing proposals very carefully. When I had done so I came to the conclusion that they should be revised in several respects. For instance, I decided that there should be a full driving test and provision for vehicle and medical tests. I put the revised proposals to the Government, with a recommendation that they were so far-reaching and affected so many interests that they should be published in White Paper form. The Government accepted my recommendations generally, and the White Paper was published. There was a great volume of response to the invitation to the public to give their views. On the whole the proposals were welcomed. There were many different views on details, and some of those views cancelled one another out. On some points we felt we should meet the case advanced, for instance, in the matter of hackney licensing. When all the views put forward were analysed and considered, revised proposals were put to the Government and the drafting of the Bill was authorised.

The drafting has been very difficult. Several completely new provisions were involved. Then there was the task of bringing up to date and consolidating provisions included in old Acts, relatively recent ones and Emergency Powers Orders, all with a different drafting base. The wide range of subjects to be covered included offences, driving licences, tests, speed limits, traffic regulation, motor insurance. Each subject had to be dealt with adequately in itself, but the words used in one part interact on other parts. Account had to be taken, not merely of court decisions both here and in Britain since the 1933 Act came into operation, but of the trend shown in court decisions and of the doubts raised by them. Here I may mention that in 1958/59 out of 88,819 summary prosecutions, 53,534 were for road traffic offences.

Care has been taken as far as possible to provide a workable Bill which will not be defeated by technicalities. The need for revision will, of course, arise in time, but it is desirable that as far as possible the main base of road traffic law will be sound. All this has taken time, but I think that, for the reasons I have stated, the time spent has been well spent. In the meantime, I have availed myself of the existing powers to make such changes in regulations as were feasible and useful; for example, the regulations which introduced the new type of pedestrian crossing. Again, I have allowed expenditure on items such as improved public lighting for traffic purposes to rank for recoupment from the Road Fund.

The explanatory memorandum with the Bill has, on my direction, been prepared so as to give the House a firm explanation of the significance of the detailed provisions of the Bill, and I do not propose at this stage to go into them in detail. I wish to concentrate on a few general matters and then to deal with the subjects of prime importance in the Bill.

It will be noted that the Bill deals mainly with motor traffic, the reason being that such traffic is, of course, more amenable to legal controls than pedestrians, pedal cycles and animal-drawn traffic. Furthermore, while other road users can by their behaviour create the conditions under which an accident is likely to occur, it is the motor vehicle that actually does the harm because of its speed and weight. The provisions of the Bill do, of course, apply to pedestrians and non-motorised traffic, where appropriate, and every effort will be made to appeal to such road users to ensure that by their actions they do not put their own lives and the lives of others in jeopardy.

Another general issue I should like to mention is that of regulations. The Bill gives various powers to spell out details by regulations; these are indicated in the Explanatory Memorandum, which also shows the kind of regulations that can be made under the various sections. The power of making regulations imposes on a Minister the difficult task of refusing when pressed to make regulations which he regards as unwise, and the unpleasant task at times of making regulations which are unpopular with particular interests. Road traffic is a business, however, which is diverse and complex, which is growing in diversity and complexity, and which, therefore, needs flexible handling and flexible powers. In some countries, the problem is solved by giving overall powers to an executive organ to make what ordinances it thinks fit on the subject. The solution put forward in this Bill is that the Oireachtas should lay down the general lines for the control of each aspect of road traffic and leave it to the executive organ to fill in the details, often very technical and generally subject to variation in accordance with the requirements of experience and changing conditions.

A further subject is the onus of proof clause. It occurs quite frequently in the Bill. I am aware that there is a prima facie case against such a clause. I find, however, that the trend has developed in the courts to require the State to prove matters which the layman might be forgiven for thinking were not really relevant to guilt in a case. I am not criticising the courts in any way. The trend is there, however, and we have been faced with prosecutions dismissed on what I would regard as technicalities, and a burden of proof thrown on the State so intensive that enforcement of the law becomes very difficult, if not impossible. Nobody wants to depart from the basic principles of the law which ensure that a man has a fair trial and that the dice are not loaded against him, but if the Bill is to be effective, it must contain those provisions which will enable the courts to deal with the issue of guilt, without having first to clear a series of technicalities.

Part 1 of the Bill deals with preliminary and general matters. Section 3 lists various definitions used in the Bill, and also defines some phrases used throughout the Bill. Some of them need particular mention. Take the words "drive", "park" and "use". "Use" is the widest possible phrase and is the basis now proposed for compulsory insurance as well as other provisions, for instance, most of those in Part II. It has not been necessary to specify that it includes "drive", but it is desirable to make it clear that it includes "park". "Drive" has the meaning given to it in the 1933 Act, but is extended for drafting purposes to cycles. "Park" is a new one, to cover the cumbersome phrase "keep or leave stationary", which would have to be repeated frequently.

Another group of words relate to ownership. "Owner" is defined as in the 1933 Act with the omission of certain words, so that a person hiring out a car on a hire-drive basis is now regarded as the owner for various provisions of the Bill, notably those relating to compulsory insurance. The owner is not necessarily the "registered owner", and the latter is far easier to trace. He is referred to in the Bill as distinct from the owner in two cases only: for the serving of notices under Section 104 and as the person liable in certain circumstances for a parking offence under Sections 86 and 90.

The reason for the first case is that the person to be served with the notice must be capable of being readily traced. The reason for the second is that there can be a great number of these relatively minor offences and it would be extremely difficult to establish ownership in all cases. Elsewhere, the owner as distinct from the registered owner is made responsible. Liability is thrown on the owner as well as the driver or actual user of a vehicle in cases where one might reasonably expect the owner to show responsibility, for example, using a defective, excessively laden or uninsured vehicle. Where, however, the person actually using the vehicle by his own decision infringes the law, then, except in the case of parking, and therefore the special reason I have mentioned, the owner is not made liable. The simplest example is dangerous driving. I have used the words "actual user" and here I may explain that court decisions have established that when a person uses a vehicle as the servant of the owner and on the owner's business, the owner is also regarded as using it. This explains some of the refinements in drafting in Part VI and elsewhere.

Generally, where the owner is made liable, he is given a defence. In the compulsory insurance provisions, and in those dealing with vehicle tests, the enforcement procedure for which is based on that for insurance certificates, he has the same defence as in the 1933 Act, and the driver is also given a defence. In other provisions, equity does not call for a defence for the driver, and the owner is given the defence of proving that the use of the vehicle was unauthorised.

Here I may mention a phrase which it has not been necessary to define in Section 3, but is used throughout the Bill, viz: "person in charge." It includes the driver where a vehicle is being driven, and in other cases the person in charge at the time, for example, of a stationary vehicle. It replaces a number of phrases used in the enactments being repealed, such as "person having control,""person having charge."

Two other phrases in Section 3 I may mention—"public place" and "public road." The sense of the definitions in the 1933 Act is preserved, but ambiguities are removed. "Public place" is the wider phrase. Provisions in the general interest of public safety, such as those relating to the construction, equipment and use of vehicles, driving licences and driving offences, insurance, general bye-laws for the regulation of traffic, apply to public places. Other provisions, which relate to particular controls, such as restrictions on weight, speed limits, local traffic and parking bye-laws, apply to public roads.

Part II of the Bill has general provisions relating to vehicles. The most significant is that providing for vehicle tests (in Sections 18 and 19) which I have already mentioned. Regulations will determine the classes of vehicle affected. Experience and the growth of traffic may dictate the extension of this provision to wider classes of vehicle than those for which it is intended in the beginning—old vehicles and possibly heavy goods vehicles. When the testing scheme is in operation it should be feasible also to have the testing of public service vehicles carried out under Section 18 instead of, as at present, under the public service vehicle licensing system; that would not affect the licensing of public service vehicles, however.

The system of enforcement is based on the production of a test certificate, and will correspond to that used for insurance certificates. Flexible provision is available to enable the Minister for Local Government to settle the authority to issue test certificates. It may be the Garda Síochána, the local authorities or even the Department of Local Government. A choice will be made of the authority to use in the beginning, and if experience shows that a change is needed, such change can be effected. This is necessary in the case of a completely new service. Similar considerations apply to the case of driving tests and tests of fitness for drivers, which I shall mention later. I may add that the Bill will enable commercial garages to be used for testing if that is thought desirable. Furthermore, full use will be made where possible of existing testing arrangements; for example, those in force in concerns with substantial vehicle fleets.

I shall mention briefly the other provisions of Part II. Section 11 replaces Section 15 and Part X of the 1933 Act, but gives wider powers to deal with the construction, equipment, use and lighting of vehicles. Some matters that it will now be possible to consider in this regard include the naming of built-up areas as silence zones at night-time, the compulsory use of safety harness or crash helmets, the reflectorisation of the rear of lorries, and the display of reflectorised warning signs to the rear of vehicles stopped on the road at night. Many suggestions which would be considered under the powers contained in Section 11 have been made to my Department. Study on the subject by international bodies has been particularly fruitful in recent times. All such suggestions and studies will be considered before the new regulations are made.

Section 12 deals with weights of vehicles, and Section 13 with special permits, both on the basis generally of the 1933 Act. Section 14 contains a definition of unladen weight for road traffic purposes. For these purposes, it is relatively unimportant, but to avoid confusion it is necessary to adopt the same definition as that in the motor tax code. Section 15 deals with weighbridges, and allows, as did the recent motor tax Act, the use of weighbridges other than road authority weighbridges. It also allows mobile weighbridges, which could be used to check axle and wheel weights. Section 16 has provisions on the lines of the 1933 Act enabling the Garda to check weights of vehicles. The section extends these powers to authorised officers of road authorities whose county engineers have complained frequently about the damage done to roads by vehicles laden beyond the legal limits. Section 17 is a redraft of the Public Roads (Ireland) Act, 1911, as amended, dealing with damage to roads caused by extraordinary traffic.

Section 20 gives the Garda power to deal with vehicles having dangerous defects and to spot check also public service vehicles not up to standard. It replaces provisions of the 1933 Act and of an Emergency Powers Order which has lapsed.

Part III of the Bill, which replaces Parts III and VI of the 1933 Act, deals with driving licences, driving and fitness tests and disqualifications. Driving and fitness tests are covered by Sections 22, 33, 34 and 42. Regulations will prescribe the classes of persons who will require certificates of competency of fitness before applying for a driving licence. It is intended that in the beginning only new drivers will be required to have a certificate of competency, for which they will require to pass a driving test and a test in knowledge of the Rules of the Road. The testing of public service vehicle drivers can also be dealt with under this provision. Consideration will be given to requiring persons convicted of certain offences, for example, careless driving, to pass such tests. In any event the courts will have power under Sections 26, 27 and 28, either on conviction of a person or an application of an officer of the Garda Síochána, to require a person to undergo the tests.

Fitness tests will, it is intended, apply in the beginning only to persons who suffer from certain disabilities, for example, loss of a limb, or to drivers of certain classes of vehicles such as buses. They may be extended also to persons over a certain age. Again, the courts will have power to require persons to undergo these tests. Furthermore, a driving examiner may realise that an applicant for a certificate of competency suffers from such a defect as bad eyesight and request that he first get a certificate of fitness. Provision is made for appeals to the courts against decisions on driving and fitness tests.

In my remarks on vehicle tests, I have already covered the question of the administration of these tests. Driving and fitness tests will be related to the class of vehicle, hence driving licences may be restricted to particular classes of vehicle, and this explains the drafting of some of the provisions on driving licences, which otherwise generally follow the pattern of the 1933 Act. There are some changes, of course. For instance, it will be possible under Section 42 to prescribe a different form of driving licence from that in use at present, and I am considering the adoption of a document with a photograph, as is used internationally, which can be renewed easily. For that reason, provisions such as Sections 24, 25 and 41 relating to the signing of licences have had to be stated in conditional terms. Provisional licences, another inevitable consequence of driving tests, are covered by Sections 35 and 42.

Disqualification is a very effective weapon to deal with bad road behaviour, and particularly with the person who repeats his offence. Section 26, therefore, extends considerably the consequential disqualification provisions of the 1933 Act, which related only to driving while under the influence of drink. It provides for consequential disqualification as follows:

(a)severe disqualification for driving while under the influence of drink and for dangerous driving resulting in death or serious bodily harm;

(b)substantial disqualification for a second offence in the case of certain serious offences which are listed in the explanatory memorandum;

(c)light, but, nevertheless, irksome disqualification in the case of certain minor offences, where the offence is repeated three times or more in a year. These offences are listed also.

Section 27 continues the provision of the 1933 Act regarding the power of the courts to disqualify in cases not involving consequential disqualification. Section 28 provides for the disqualification of a person who is obviously unfit or incompetent to drive, application being made to the court by an officer of the Garda Síochána. This is a preventive measure, based on Section 32 of the 1933 Act. Various minor improvements to the 1933 Act provisions regarding disqualification and endorsement procedure have also been effected.

Under Section 29 of the Bill, a person to whom a consequential or ancillary disqualification order applies may apply to the court, subject to certain conditions, for its removal. This is intended to replace the position under the Criminal Justice Act, 1951, whereby the Minister for Justice may remit a disqualification, and Section 124 in Part IX has a specific provision to that effect.

Apart from disqualification by court order, a person may be disqualified on the grounds of age—or rather, youth— under Section 31, and on the grounds of health under Section 32. Under the latter provision, certain diseases and disabilities may be prescribed which will automatically disqualify a person for holding any driving licence. Only defects which clearly make a man a danger on the road will be prescribed, for example, epilepsy or eyesight below a certain standard even with glasses, but it is necessary to have flexible powers because of the continuing research on this subject. It is intended that the new form of application for a driving licence will specifically ask a person if he is suffering from the prescribed defects. The form will also ask a person to state if he is suffering from any other defect which would warrant his undergoing a fitness test before being given a licence.

Section 42 enables regulations to be made to implement Part III generally, and examples of this are set out in the section. For instance, a subject which was not dealt with altogether satisfactorily in the 1933 Act, namely, the manner of endorsement of licences, transfer of licences from the courts to licensing authorities and so on, will be covered by regulations. In view of the complex provisions of this Part of the Bill, the regulations will be long and involved and are likely to contain a great amount of detail.

Section 43 contains transitional provisions. I shall illustrate the type of problem involved. It is intended, for instance, to enable persons to apply to the courts under Section 29 for removal of disqualifications under the 1933 Act. Again, it will be some time before driving tests and the new scheme of driving licences are brought into operation. It is desirable, however, to bring in immediately certain provisions of the Bill, such as Part V and Section 26, which provide substantial penalties for driving offences, including consequential disqualification. The apparatus of the 1933 Act will in the interim period be used to implement such disqualifications.

Part IV deals with speed limits and is largely self-explanatory. Ordinary speed limits were set down in the 1933 Act, but are now to be covered by regulations under Section 44, because research may show the need for changes from time to time. The built-up area speed limit of 30 m.p.h. is provided for in Section 45. If experience shows it is too low, it can be raised. I decided not to adopt the British system of relating the limit to public lighting, because of doubts that can arise as to the applicability of such a limit. Instead, the basic area will be a town, urban district, borough or county borough, but there will be power to add and subtract.

I do not think this power should be widely used but there may be a case for including villages carrying important through roads and suburban roads outside cities and towns. Again, there may be a clear, wide road in a city or town which should not be subject to the special limit. The procedure I envisage is that the police and road authorities in each area will be asked to draw up a list of the roads in the municipal areas which they consider should be excluded and of roads outside these areas which they consider should be included and that those will be fully examined before being listed in the regulations.

Special speed limits are provided for in Section 46 on the same basis as in the 1933 Act, except that the requirement of a local inquiry is dropped. However, there is general power in the Local Government Acts to hold an inquiry, if one is required. There is only one special speed limit under the 1933 Act, that in Bray, and it will be continued under Section 10 until either the Garda or the urban district council ask to have it revoked.

Sections 44-46 enable categories of vehicles to be excluded from the speed limits, for example, ambulances and fire-engines. Section 47 provides for the penalty for exceeding a speed limit. Proof of speed in connection with offences under the Bill is dealt with in Section 105.

Part V deals with a group of serious offences under the title "Driving Offences." A new offence of dangerous parking is introduced and various improvements have been effected in the other sections, which replace provisions of the Licensing Act, 1872, and the Road Traffic Act, 1933. In the case of those sections, the penalties have been substantially increased.

The new offence of dangerous parking is contained in Section 55. It relates to all vehicles, because trailers and even carts can cause very serious hazards to traffic, but the qualifying words "in such a position or in such condition or in such circumstances as to be likely to cause danger" will control the scope of the section. An offence may be committed in the daytime, because parking round a blind bend can be very serious even in the day-time, but the more serious offence is parking unlit at night-time and that is indicated in the difference in penalty.

The offence of driving or attempting to drive while under the influence of drink is dealt with in Section 49. The basic penalty proposed is imprisonment, and it is also proposed that the Probation Act shall not apply to the offence. Following the publication of the White Paper, I received some suggestions for the introduction of a blood, urine or breath test followed by automatic conviction if a certain level of alcohol were proved. I decided against including such a proposal in this Bill for the following reasons: (a) it was not mentioned in the White Paper, and the public reaction to it could not, therefore, be gauged; (b) research on the subject is not conclusive, as to the validity of such a test as to the level of alcohol to take, or as to the method of use; and (c) it raises serious constitutional questions relating to personal rights, which would have to be fully considered.

The proposal will be further examined by my Department in the light of further research on the various issues involved and of how the provisions in the present Bill work in practice. Apart from Section 49, the provisions of Section 50 are relevant. That section replaces a minor offence in the Licensing Act by a serious offence of being in charge of a mechanically propelled vehicle while under the influence of drink. To an extent it is a preventive measure. Furthermore, a fairly recent court decision should remove much of the difficulty in getting conviction in clear cases. Of course, if experience and further research show that something like the blood test should be introduced, an amending Bill can be prepared. For the reasons I have given, I could not justify holding up this Bill because of this single issue.

One further driving offence I may mention is dangerous driving, dealt with in Section 53. A new category of this offence is set out in paragraph (a) of subsection (2), which provides for a heavy prison sentence where the offence results in death or serious bodily harm. This is necessary because of the difficulty of securing convictions on manslaughter in the type of case that shocks the public.

Part VI deals with compulsory insurance. In general, there are no major changes here. I have already mentioned the change from "negligent driving" to "negligent use" followed in the drafting. There are some other matters I may mention.

The 1933 Act provided for compulsory cover for passengers only in the case of public service vehicles. Section 65 enables the Minister for Local Government by regulations to specify the classes of vehicle to which compulsory passenger cover will apply. I can say that the regulations will apply, of course, to public service vehicles and that, while I shall fully consider any representations on the subject, my views at present are that the regulations should apply also to all vehicles of the private-car and station-wagon types.

Section 64 tightens up the law on fraud and misrepresentation in obtaining insurance cover. Some minor changes have been effected which would enable us to adhere to a European convention in due course if we decided to do so. These are in paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of Section 72 and subsection (2) of Section 76.

Under Section 78, the Motor Insurers' Bureau system and the collateral guarantees under it will apply to all new insurers, guarantors and exempted persons. Existing companies have all given the necessary undertaking.

A device known as a "combined policy and guarantee" was provided for in the 1933 Act. I understand that it was never used and is not required. References to it have been omitted.

Part VII deals with the control and operation of public service vehicles. Two Parts of the 1933 Act dealt in very great detail with this subject, although very important matters such as driving licences and the construction of vehicles were dealt with far more tersely, but quite effectively. This was due to what I might call historical causes, including the fact that the provisions of the 1933 Act on public service vehicles were based on existing local Acts and bye-laws, which naturally went into much more detail than a general Act does. The balance has now been restored and the result is a relatively short Part which contains the gist of Parts VII and VIII of the 1933 Act and of Emergency Powers Orders, now lapsed, on the same subject. Again, the testing of public service vehicles would now more appropriately fall to be dealt with under Section 18 of the Bill, when the general testing under that section comes into operation.

Under Section 82 regulations will be made dealing with the licensing of public service vehicles and drivers. It is intended to retain the licensing of hackneys under these regulations.

Section 84 enables the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána to make bye-laws fixing taxi stands in an area. Power is given to him to make temporary rules on the subject so that traffic control experiments can be carried out. Similar power is given in Sections 89 and 90 (in Part VIII) regarding local traffic and parking bye-laws.

Sections 85 and 86 have provisions regarding bus-stops which are based on Emergency Powers Orders, now lapsed. The procedure under the Emergency Powers Orders was flexible and was found to be workable, whereas the procedure under the 1933 Act, requiring bye-laws, was unsuitable for a subject sometimes requiring speedy action. Queueing at bus-stops will be governed by general bye-laws under Section 86 instead of individual local bye-laws.

Part VIII deals with the regulation of traffic. Most of the sections are based on provisions of the 1933 Act and of the 1946 and 1955 Local Government Acts, but they have been improved in various respects. I shall give two examples of this.

Section 90 makes it clear that parking meters or "blue zones" (involving the use of discs) may be used. Scientific parking control can lead to far better use of existing roads and so save heavy expense on road improvement. That is not to say that necessary road works will not be undertaken. I envisage that the Garda Síochána and the local authority concerned will consider the particular scheme most suited to an area before a decision is taken. If, say, parking meters are decided on for a central city area, then the Commissioner will make bye-laws naming the sections of street where meters will be provided and the local authority will administer the scheme in so far as provision of meters and collection of fees are concerned. The Garda and the local authority will, no doubt, come together to settle a scheme for enforcement.

Section 101 deals with the provision of off-street car parks, and enables local authorities not merely to provide them themselves but also to assist private enterprise to build them. These off-street car parks can be of considerable help in reducing traffic congestion.

New provisions are contained in Sections 91 and 97. Section 91 makes it clear that the Garda Síochána may take special steps to deal with traffic in the occasion of what I might call emergencies—large processions, traffic jams and so on. It also incorporates a provision of the Fire Brigades Act, 1940, to the same effect.

Section 97 enables the Garda to remove a vehicle which has been abandoned or is causing danger or obstruction, and to recover from the owner the cost of removal and storage. Part IX contains a number of miscellaneous provisions, largely taken from the 1933 Act and improved where necessary. Section 102 provides for a penalty for any offence for which a specific penalty is not named in the Bill.

Section 103 introduces what has been called "fines on the spot", but the procedure is not quite that. A notice will be given to the person or affixed to the vehicle concerned, and a prescribed sum may then be paid at a Garda station or the person concerned may opt to have the issue determined by the courts. Increased penalties are provided under a number of sections, for example, Section 106, which deals with the hit-and-run driver.

Section 107 deals with the duty of the owner of a vehicle to give information as to who drove it when it was involved in an offence. The present draft removes a loophole that existed in the 1933 Act.

Subsection (3) of Section 112 reenacts the provisions of an Emergency Powers Order, now lapsed, which made it an offence unlawfully to take possession of a pedal cycle. It is difficult to secure conviction for larceny in such cases. Section 120 authorises local authorities to incur expenditure on road safety, and enables Road Fund grants to be given for that purpose, too, both to local authorities and to bodies primarily concerned with road safety.

The provisions of the Bill will be brought into force as quickly as possible under Section 2. The programme we have in mind is somewhat as follows:

(1)Immediately the Bill is passed, bring into operation Part I which is general; in Part II, Section 20, which gives the Garda Síochána power to test vehicles; in Part III, Sections 26 and 29 which set out consequential disqualifications and enable a person to apply to the courts for removal of disqualifications; Part V, dealing with driving offences; Part VI, dealing with motor insurance; practically all of Part VIII, which deals with the regulation of traffic; practically all of Part IX. Regulations and bye-laws made under corresponding provisions of repealed Acts will for the time being apply to the new provisions under Section 10. In one or two cases some simple new regulations will be necessary.

(2)Fairly soon after the making of regulations bring into operation Part VII dealing with public service vehicles; the remainder of Parts VIII and IX.

(3)The provisions of Sections 18 and 19 relating to vehicle tests, and what will be left of Part III—relating to driving and fitness tests, etc.—must await the establishment of the organisation to carry out the tests and the making of the necessary regulations.

(4)The remaining provisions of Part II should await the preparation of the new regulations under Sections 11 and 12 of the Bill, which will take some time.

(5)Part IV can be brought into operation when the survey of roads for speed-limit purposes, which I mentioned already, has been completed, the regulations are ready and the traffic signs are up.

All the work necessary to get the whole of the Bill into operation without delay will be pressed forward as quickly as possible.

I think I am safe in assuming that Deputies of all Parties will welcome this Bill. For my part, I can assure them that I will give full consideration to every positive proposal for its improvement.

I trust and hope that the Bill and the other measures I have mentioned will achieve their purpose, and in particular the purpose of stopping the appalling slaughter on our roads. We shall proceed with our efforts to rouse in the public an awareness of their responsibilities, to foster a spirit of courtesy in all road users and to develop in them the knowledge and application of rules of good road behaviour. The provisions of the Bill, implemented by appropriate regulations, will be available to all those engaged in the work of making our roads safe. The Garda will be on the alert to detect and check bad road behaviour, and by caution and prosecution where necessary, to improve our standards. The courts, I have no doubt, will play their part in serving the community. If, despite all those efforts, there still remains a hard core of resistance to the demands of a civilised society, then I think that more stringent action will be necessary and ruthless use should be made of the penal provisions of the Bill, many of them quite severe. Such a course would be justified, because to my mind killing and maiming on the roads is no different from killing and maiming in other circumstances. I trust, however, that the good sense and the traditions of our people will render such a course unnecessary.

The Minister is right in thinking that every Deputy will welcome the introduction of this Bill. I do not want to be in any way querulous with the Minister but the quarrel which the Minister may find that Deputies have with him regarding the Bill is that it was not introduced a long time ago. It is a fact, and it is acknowledged by the Minister in his statement, that a great deal of the proposals, which are now being put into legislative form in this Bill, were on the Minister's desk and waiting for him when the present Government assumed office in the year 1957. A great deal of the necessary research work, the preparatory work, had been done. The proposals, which are now contained in this Bill, were already drafted and in existence. If anyone quarrels with the Minister or with the Government it will be principally because the Bill is only being introduced now, some four years later.

There is a difficulty which will face Deputies in discussing this Bill—it is a difficulty to which the Minister himself has also adverted—namely, the fact that so many of the matters to be covered by this Bill will be the subject of Ministerial regulations or bye-laws to be made by the Commissioner. I appreciate that in a Bill of this type and dealing with a subject of this type it is necessary for the Minister to take for himself power to make regulations. Speaking generally with regard to the question of Ministerial regulations, I believe it is far better that Ministers, generally, should avoid drafting legislation in such a way that Ministerial regulations become necessary in order to implement it.

It is not at all easy for the ordinary man-in-the-street to follow legislation even when the entire requirement is contained in an Act of Parliament. It is very much more difficult when the Act of Parliament is merely the ground work on which a number of regulations will be erected which will then have the force of law. It is definitely preferable to ensure as far as it can be ensured that when legislation is being drafted the entire matter shall be set down in detail in the Bill rather than that Ministerial regulations or bye-laws to be made by the Commissioner should follow afterwards.

While I say that, I appreciate that in dealing with the road traffic problem regulations are necessary because of circumstances which change from time to time in relation to different parts of the country and in relation to the traffic itself. I am disappointed, I may say quite frankly, to note from the Minister's concluding remarks that there will be further delay before this measure, when passed through the Oireachtas, can be implemented. Only portions of it will be implemented more or less immediately and then other portions have to await the perfection of further Ministerial regulations.

Every Deputy is conscious of the seriousness of the figures which the Minister quoted with regard to road accidents. Deputies and the public are very conscious of the fact that in 1960 there were practically 300 fatalities as a result of road accidents in this country and that there were practically 4,000 accidents in which personal injury was occasioned. There is no doubt that the public mind has been disturbed for some time past by the condition of traffic on our roads, by what the Minister has described as slaughter on our roads. Deputies and the public generally will welcome this Bill in the hope that it will be passed speedily by the House and may have some effect on that problem.

The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I think this Bill is some 50 sections shorter than the 1933 Road Traffic Act. My recollection is that the Road Traffic Act, 1933, contained nearly 180 sections. This Bill contains 127 sections. It is a shorter Bill because some of the sections or parts of the 1933 Act did not require to be re-enacted in full. The Bill brings into existence some new principles, in addition to increasing penalties for existing offences. The idea of a driving test is a new one in this country. One of the matters referred to by the Minister towards the end of his speech, that of fines-on-the-spot, is a new principle to be introduced, and to a fairly large extent a general speed limit is a new principle.

Apart from these few new principles, the Bill is by and large a Bill which increases, and rightly increases, the existing penalties for traffic offences. As the Minister has pointed out, there are sections in the Bill which are designed to make it easier for the prosecution to obtain a conviction in the case of prosecutions for traffic offences. There are many matters about which I think all Deputies would like to get further information, matters on which they might have some difficulty in speaking in detail because they are not set out in the Bill but will be covered at a later date by the regulations which the Minister is to make.

I want to say—and I say it on behalf of this Party—that we approve without reservation of the introduction of driving tests. The Minister has indicated that the regulations regarding driving tests will, in the first instance, apply to certain classes of drivers. I think he mentioned that new drivers would be required to undergo a test and also that, in the case of persons who have been convicted of driving offences involving careless or dangerous driving, he would consider that they should be required to undergo a driving test also I want to express full approval of the Minister's mind, as I understood it, on that subject.

I believe there was something completely anomalous in the position that a person who never before had driven a motor car, a motorcycle or other such vehicle, could, on payment of a prescribed fee, become the possessor of a driving licence which entitled him to take a motor car or a motorcycle out on the public road and drive it and no one was entitled to say a word to him for doing that. It is essential that any person who is applying for a driving licence hereafter for the first time and who has not had any experience in driving, should be required to undergo a driving test. The Minister is right in providing that that test will not simply be a test of a person's ability to sit into a car, release the clutch and steer the car, but that it will also require a knowledge of the rules of the road, which I assume the Minister will ensure will be made readily available.

Any person who is convicted of careless driving, dangerous driving, driving while drunk or any offence which involves dangerous driving should be required to undergo a driving test before having his licence renewed, and I suggest in any case where disqualification from driving follows a conviction, the driving licence should not be issued again to the person who has been disqualified until he has undergone a driving test and has satisfied the authorities that he is competent to drive.

There is a matter about which the Minister cannot do very much by legislation, but about which each of us can do a certain amount in our approach to this Bill and in our approach to the problem of road traffic generally. I believe it to be true, and I think a number of people who are interested in the general question of road safety believe it to be true, that no matter what legislation we introduce in this House, we will not make the roads safe unless drivers and road users generally develop a serious sense of individual responsibility, particularly as far as the driving of motor vehicles is concerned.

No matter how perfect our highway code or our legislation may be, unless people have a definite sense of individual responsibility to other users of the road, we will continue to have accidents. I realise—and I think the Minister will agree with me in this— that one of the factors which go to diminish a person's sense of responsibility is the fact that we have—and I believe it is necessary—compulsory insurance. I believe that if there were not compulsory insurance and if a person who was involved in a road accident found that he himself had to bear the full financial loss involved by his carelessness, we would very quickly develop a sense of responsibility as drivers. However, it is not possible to permit that situation to come into being. The risk would be too heavy for the other users of the road who might be innocent parties in a road accident and who might suffer very severely if they were injured by a person who was not required to have insurance and who had not the means whereby to compensate for the damage done. Accordingly, we must have compulsory insurance.

The Minister mentioned that he intended to make regulations with regard to passenger cover. I should like to make this recommendation to him. It may be implicit in what he has already stated—I cannot find it in the Bill. I believe the Minister should ensure that where a person takes out a car on a self-drive basis, the passenger cover in these circumstances will be compulsory. The Minister and most Deputies will be aware that very frequently where self-drive cars are let out by the firms or companies who deal in that kind of hiring, all that is necessary it that you have the minimum insurance cover.

The obligation to insure passengers does not exist. Frequently what happens is that a person taking out a self-drive car signs the proposal for insurance and is often honestly under the impression that not only is he covered for third party insurance, but also that he is covered for passenger risk. I have come across a number of cases where the actual insurance which was taken out did not cover passenger risk, where these cars were involved in accidents and the passengers found that they had no avenue of compensation open to them. I recommend to the Minister that in dealing with this question of compulsory passenger insurance, he should ensure that such cars will have to carry it.

The Minister referred to what is described as the fines-on-the-spot system. I am not entirely sure whether the system is designed to convenience the Garda, the courts or the traffic offenders—it is probably a combination of all three. I imagine it certainly would result in a convenience to the Garda and to the courts in that the time of the Garda would not be taken up in going to court and giving evidence in cases where the offender opts to pay the fine. My purely personal inclination is rather against fines-on-the-spot but I am bound to say I believe it is a system that would have general support. My Party considered the question at considerable length and as a Party, they felt it would be an improvement in our road traffic legislation to have such a system.

I should like to ask the Minister to what extent he has examined the system which he is proposing in relation to the provisions of the Constitution. It does seem to raise a question as to whether or not the particular scheme which the Minister advocates is in accord with the provisions of, I think, Article 34. I do not claim to quote accurately but I believe it provides that justice will be administered by judges appointed by law and will be administered in public. I think there is some other Article—Article 37, perhaps—which does seem to modify that to some extent but it seems to me that the system proposed by the Minister is at least in danger of running counter to constitutional provisions. I do not believe that it is impossible to get a fines-on-the-spot system which would accord fully with the Constitution and I should like the Minister to tell us if he has examined that aspect of the particular scheme he proposes. If he has not examined it, will he now do so and get a decision on it?

The Minister referred to the fact that various amendments have been made in existing law with regard to the onus of proof in all Road Traffic Act prosecutions. I might have one view on that as a lawyer who does not appear for the prosecution but I believe that, generally speaking, the public will understand, appreciate and welcome any moves that are made to ensure that the intention of the Oireachtas in road traffic legislation will be carried out, but, now that the Minister is taking away a number of difficulties from the path of the Garda and others who may be prosecuting, I think it would be as well if he examined a proposal which I think has been made here before—if not, I should be surprised—that the Courts should be permitted and encouraged to award expenses to a defendant who is acquitted, having been charged with some offence under the Road Traffic Acts.

The Minister, and the House as a whole, will be aware that some of the offences under road traffic legislation —and some referred to in this Bill— are exceedingly serious. The penalties are very heavy either by way of fine or imprisonment and a defendant who is charged with a road traffic offence now, when there are such heavy penalties, will be put to considerable personal expense in defending those proceedings. I am talking about what I might call major offences, not relatively minor offences such as parking and so on, and it seems to me that having regard to the fact that the Minister is easing the difficulties of the prosecution in this Bill, serious thought should be given to allowing a successful defendant, one acquitted by the courts, to recover expenses, even if he is not awarded costs. I am not suggesting that costs, as such, should be awarded but expenses in having witnesses attend on his behalf, expenses which he himself is put to, possibly in travelling down the country or from the country up to Dublin to defend the summons. I would urge that the matter should be considered in connection with this legislation.

The Minister mentioned—my recollection is that it was in connection with regulations to be made by him or bye-laws made by the Commissioner—the question of reflectorised road signs and reflectorised markings of one sort or another at the rear of lorries. I should like to express very full support for any moves which the Minister makes in that direction. With the wealth of material now available so far as reflectorised signs are concerned, it would be a pity if we did not take full advantage of it. It is true to say that a very large proportion of the accidents, either fatal or involving personal injury, occur under conditions where the lighting is not good, occur at night or where street lighting is inadequate. Any move the Minister or his Department can make to increase the motorists' protection by provision of reflectorised signs or anything they can do in that direction is certainly welcome.

When talking of reflectorised signs, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Justice and I had an opportunity of seeing a demonstration of reflectorised signs and how helpful they can be in darkness. I was certainly impressed by it. I believe the Parliamentary Secretary was impressed too, and I hope that he will make the same plea to the Minister as I am making now.

The particular bee I have in my bonnet would come to be dealt with under regulations made. I refer to this problem of night driving against cars, the drivers of which refuse to dip their lights. At the moment every motorist is required to have a dipping device, but he is not required by law, I think, to dip. When a motorist does not dip his headlights the difficulty is that he has passed before anyone can do anything about it. There is no method by which one can stop him. I suggest it should be a specific offence for a motorist to fail to dip his headlights when approaching traffic. It will be a matter, if you like, of luck and it will be a matter, again, if you like, of the competence of the Garda authorities to catch and convict a driver who does not dip his headlights. I strongly suggest to the Minister that it should be an offence not to dip, and it should be an offence carrying fairly heavy penalties.

There is nothing more dangerous at night than to meet a maniac who refuses to dip his headlights and flashes past approaching traffic, headlights blazing, causing everyone considerable difficulty and danger. The reason I mention this matter is that in the demonstration which I mentioned earlier reflectorised number plates were demonstrated and it was shown that it is possible for a motorist to see the number plate of an on-coming vehicle if that on-coming vehicle is fitted with a reflectorised number plate. If such plates were in general use it would be possible to take the number of a driver who does not dip his headlights. I believe there is a good deal to be said for an extension of the use of reflectorised material in number plates. As I understand the law at the moment, the requirement is that there will be a black background and white or bright lettering. I do not know if the Minister has given consideration to altering the regulations in that regard. If he has not, then I think he should, because, if he were to permit the use of reflectorised material, that would involve a change in the existing regulations governing the pattern of number plates.

I am glad to note that steps are being taken under this Bill to remedy a position under the Health Act, a position to which I drew the attention of the Minister for Health some considerable time ago. At the moment where a payment is made to a hospital for the maintenance of a person entitled to Health Act treatment, who has been injured in a road accident, the health authority have no means of recovering even though the injured person, whose hospital charges have been paid, subsequently succeeds in an action for negligence and recovers a sum for damages. The health authority cannot be recouped under existing legislation and the only people we are saving as a result of that flaw in our health legislation—a flaw which was remedied, I should say, in England some time ago—are the insurance companies. The Minister has introduced a section in this Bill to remedy that position now and to enable health authorities to recover.

It seems to me that in the section, as drafted, two separate proceedings will be required. Take the example I have given of a person who is knocked down and goes to hospital, and the health authority pays for his maintenance there, with or without charge. I should have imagined that the proper way to deal with such a case if the injured person subsequently succeeds in an action for negligence, would be for the injured person to include the cost of his maintenance in the hospital in his claim; then, when he recovers, he can pay back the health authority. At the moment two separate proceedings seem to be visualised.

As I said at the outset, this Bill will be generally welcome. There are a number of matters which can more properly be discussed and considered in greater detail on the Committee Stage. So far as the principles of the Bill are concerned, they will be welcomed by every Deputy. The desire of all Deputies will be to ensure that not only is the legislation passed by the Oireachtas but that it will be put into operation at as early a date as can be arranged by the Minister.

On behalf of the Labour Party I should like to welcome this Bill. I believe that the most useful work on this Bill will be that done in Committee. Having examined the Bill in the background of existing traffic legislation, it is not really practicable to enumerate on Second Reading the detailed points requiring consideration. One can do no more than point the cardinal defects or cardinal advantages of the Bill.

I was particularly interested in one point made by the Minister. He said that he fully understood that, no matter how effective traffic regulations could be made and no matter how numerous they were, without enforcement of such regulations, any traffic Act is of very little use. He pointed out that he had discussed this matter with the Minister for Justice and had got assurances that, when this Bill had the force of law, the Guards would see to it that it was enforced. Perhaps that will be true; I do not know. But I do know that at present the enforcement of the existing Acts is carried out in a very haphazard manner.

It is illegal under present legislation to park within 30 feet of a corner. Yet every day in every town in Ireland we find that being done and no action is taken by the Guards. We have local authorities endeavouring to introduce the system of alternate parking in streets and to provide special parking places, but parking offenders are allowed to get away with it, practically in front of the police. If that is allowed to continue as part of the "charm" of Ireland—that we make laws and ignore them—all the Minister's work and all the talk we shall have on this subject, both here and in the Seanad, will be of very little use.

Pedestrian crossings were introduced in Dublin in recent months. The Minister must know that the regulations concerning these are honoured more in the breach than the observance, because pedestrians cross anywhere but at the authorised pedestrian crossings. I have seen very few, if any, prosecutions against pedestrians, but the full wrath of the law appears to be turned on the motorist. In Dublin and every other city pedestrians and cyclists seem to be privileged people. Even though the law is supposed to apply to them, no apparent effort is made to control them.

I would suggest to the Minister that he should raise these points with the Minister for Justice, and also suggest to him something I have been advocating to the Department of Justice for a long time—a considerable increase in the number of mobile police. Since we have become mechanised, there is a greater movement of people and the day of the man "on the beat" is practically finished. Today we should make much greater use of mobile police. Take the Naas Road, for instance. No matter what anybody says, I regard it as a "racecourse" and a death trap; yet very rarely do we find it effectively policed by mobile police.

There are a few general observations I should like to make on this Bill. I would emphasise, however, that they are mainly my own personal views rather than the considered views of the Party to which I belong. I believe the main cause of accidents is not the drunken driver but the uncontrolled "speed merchant". More than 75 per cent. of our accidents could be avoided if regulations controlling speed were enforced. I welcome the fact that there is provision in this Bill to do that and that it includes the making of speed limits for scheduled roads; but unless these provisions are enforced, the Bill will be of very little use.

I notice that the Bill gives power to Guards and officials of local authorities to check weights in connection with damage to roads and the danger of overladen vehicles. One of the main sources of accidents is the passing out of heavily-laden vehicles. I think it has more to do with the length of the vehicle and, perhaps, a trailer rather than the weight. In general, C.I.E. appear to be great offenders in this respect. To have an opportunity of pulling out and safely overtaking some of the vehicles with trailers put on the roads by C.I.E. and some other firms would require practically a mile of straight road.

There are some other points which could be advantageously raised on Committee Stage. For instance, there is the question of parking. The idea of having reflectors on lorries is excellent, but the problem is on what side of the road should the lorry be parked in order to have the reflector visible to oncoming traffic. If the lorry is parked on the wrong side of the road, it will be facing oncoming traffic and a reflector at the rear will be of little, if any, use. Indiscriminate parking on the wrong side of the road is being allowed throughout the country. Anyone travelling from this city at night may expect to meet lorries indiscriminately parked on any side of the road. There is a grave danger that even the most careful driver in certain types of weather will not be able to see that parked vehicle until he is on top of it.

One of the main causes of accidents is the cyclist without a light or reflector. Such people simply seem to get away with it, unless they have the misfortune to be killed. The cyclist who bothers to carry a light is the exception on the country road. I think that the enforcement of the law in regard to lights and reflectors on bicycles has been practically unknown in rural areas since the days of the R.I.C. All our efforts to save life on the roads are most commendable, but they will be useless if the small points are not insisted upon. All this talk about the drunken driver, blood tests and so on is merely a smokescreen for the ineffectiveness of our law enforcement machinery.

I was delighted to hear the Minister say that he had turned down the American idea of a blood test for alleged drunken drivers. Those of us who take a drink realise that what would make one man drunk might have no effect at all on another but, on the contrary, might even steady his nerves. Drunkenness varies according to the individual concerned, whether he is accustomed to it or has never taken it before and whether he is in good physical health at the time. No one has sympathy for the man who is incapable of driving because of either drink or drugs. When a man is in that state, he is not able to drive a car. I am pretty sure also that the number of accidents caused by such drivers is much less than we are led to believe, because of the fact that when such a case occurs, it gets so much publicity that people are inclined to assume that most fatal accidents are caused by drunken drivers. I completely disagree. I believe it is the young, inexperienced driver who believes his machine is an airplane rather than a car, and who wants to show to the passers-by the terrific driver he is at high speeds, the speed merchant, who should be penalised. Stress should be laid on dangerous driving, and the penalties for such driving greatly increased.

I agree wholeheartedly with the proposed test for new drivers. Before a person takes charge of a mechanically propelled vehicle, there should be some test of his knowledge, not only in regard to the management of the car on the road, but in regard to the rules of the road. I often wondered why it was not compulsory for motor car vendors to issue with a new car a booklet setting out the rules of the road. Most drivers who take out a driver's licence for the first time are very vague about what they should or should not do in an emergency. Most people to whom I suggested that there was an obligation on them to give way to traffic coming on a certain side, the right-hand side, looked at me in amazement and said: "Where did you get that one from?" Unless some universal code is agreed on and understood by all, these traffic accidents will continue to happen.

This is a good Bill. It is essential that we should have regulations, and when we have them, they should be strictly enforced. I was interested in the point made by Deputy O'Higgins in connection with dimming devices on cars. Certainly one of the greatest offences committed in Ireland is related to those dimming devices. Whatever the law is, whether it is compulsory only to have the dimming device and not use it, or whether the motorist must use it, most of us know that the law is honoured more in the breach than in the application. Usually it is practically impossible to trace the culprit in such cases. The person who comes towards one on a straight road, who dims until he comes abreast of one and then blazes on all his lights fully, is more a culprit than the man who has one drink over and above what is normally considered to be a safe amount of intoxicating liquor.

We in the Labour Party welcome the general principles of the Bill. Amendments will probably be put down and there will be discussions on the various sections, but, on the whole, it is desirable that legislation such as this should be speedily enacted.

Any effort made by the Government to improve the situation so far as the control of traffic and the safety of people driving along the roads and using the roads are concerned should be welcomed and given very serious consideration. As Deputy Kyne has pointed out, this is a Bill on which all Parties can give their contributions, contributions which the Minister in his statement said would be welcomed by him and given serious attention on Committee Stage.

There are a number of points which arise on the Bill itself in reference to which I should like to give my personal views, but this stage of the Bill is not, in my view, the proper stage on which to do so. I do want to issue a certain warning in regard to this Bill. You do not achieve the purpose you seek to achieve—certainly in this Bill —merely by passing a Bill with 127 sections and two Schedules promising a multitude of regulations, and you do not achieve it by what Deputy Kyne wants, full enforcement of the provisions of the Bill. You require very much more.

You require co-operation and education of the public; you require the co-operation and intensive education of the motoring public; and you require courtesy and tact on the part of the Garda. You require the general co-operation of all those sections to ensure not merely that the Bill and the regulations will be enforced—the regulations will involve court proceedings, heavy fines and punishments—but that the success of the Bill will be achieved by having respect for the law and by the general public and the motoring public giving help and co-operation in securing enforcement of and respect for the law.

We have a Bill before us with 127 sections and two Schedules. One of the Schedules provides no less than twenty-four new offences calling for disqualification and, of course, serious offences require serious punishment. There is then a provision permitting regulations to be made by three Ministers and the Commissioner of the Garda. Regulations may be made by the Minister for Local Government; regulations may be made by the Minister for Justice; regulations may be made by the Minister for Transport and Power; and the Commissioner of the Garda may make bye-laws which, in effect, are regulations in themselves. A multitude of offences is created in the Bill and a vast array of offences will be created by these regulations. We now have to deal with the enforcement of that array of offences, punishment, respect for the bye-laws and respect for other people's rights.

How is all that to be achieved? It can be done if the law is enforced the way it should be—to its full length and breadth. In my view, that would require 90 per cent. of the personnel of the Garda and 90 per cent. of the time of the Garda. Where will we get that? In the cities of Dublin and Cork, and I presume in other cities with which I am not so familiar as I am with those two, we are familiar with the situation where the Garda, and particularly the young Gardaí, go around the side-streets note-book in hand, taking the numbers of cars for parking summonses. A vast quantity of the time of the Garda is utilised in dealing with what are really minor offences. I suggest in all seriousness for the Minister's consideration that the concentration—certainly at the beginning—so far as Garda operations and prosecutions are concerned, should be on major matters and major offences. I should like to know how much of the time of the Garda is spent in merely looking after minor parking offences.

The Garda should be on duty at corners, at intersections and in the vicinity of bollards at pedestrian crossings to watch for road hogs—people who not merely infringe the regulations but in some cases have never even read them. There should be a mobile police force in cars or on motor cycles to watch in the streets and on the country roads for major infringements of the law which are likely to lead to serious damage. That would be much better than to have them seek pin-pricking minor offences such as when a person parks his car for a few minutes to go into a shop to make a purchase. The time of the Garda is wasted on such efforts. It is necessary to ensure the education of motorists in their duties, as such, and to get their co-operation.

If by virtue of the operations of the Garda—perhaps through a lack of courtesy or a lack of tact—a resistance and a feeling of irritation is built up in the country against the authorities and against the Garda, it may very well result in the prevention of the real carrying out and implementation of this Bill. We require not so much these small prosecutions in respect of minor offences as an intensive concentration on really serious offences.

The cost of this Bill will be pretty considerable to the taxpayer and to the motoring public. I said we require the courtesy of the Garda but I am not to be taken as saying that they lack tact. Many motorists are arrogant, impudent, self-assertive and too rich to submit to small, irritating regulations about parking, and so on. It will be the duty of the Garda charged with the enforcement of these provisions to secure public co-operation and not to go around seeking some minor offence to write into a notebook and either charge a fine on the spot or have somebody down in the courts. That is all wrong.

There will be a big cost to the taxpayer. There will be a very large increase in the work of the Garda. All that ought to be concentrated on big issues. This Bill ought to be looked at in that perspective and not in the perspective of an infinite variety and detail of offences.

The Minister said he created the new charge of dangerous driving causing death or bodily harm because of the difficulty of securing prosecutions. I do not like that phrase. If I am permitted later, on the Juries Bill, I hope to pay a tribute to the public service which juries have rendered in this country. Somebody thinks an accident resulting in a death is shocking. The jury, in strict accordance with the principles of the criminal law, find a person not guilty. We are told the public is shocked because the prosecution cannot secure a conviction. It is not the duty of a prosecution to secure a conviction but to put the evidence before a jury of independent persons who for many years have carried out their duty in that respect to deal with the case on the evidence.

Unless we get that respect for public opinion which is desirable and cut down on pin-pricking activities, in relation to the motoring public, we have no guarantee of an effective safeguard against the dangers of the road which confront the public at the moment. That is a big principle which must be watched and put into operation.

Let us get away from a concentration on minor offences and get down to the real problem of the drunken driver or the driver who is too conscious of his power and of his capacity with a dangerous instrument in his hands. I have in mind also people who pass out other cars at intersections and crossroads and who go through crossroads without sounding their horns.

I suppose I am a very small minority in my view about the duty of a motorist to sound the horn. As far as my observation and reading go, it seems it has become rather fashionable to say there is too much sounding of the horn and that people are wakened during the night by such noises. I should prefer people's rest to be disturbed for a second or two rather than that motorists should, as they do, go at high speeds through the city without sounding their horns, and even through crossroads and traffic lights.

There is a good case to be made against the cacophony which afflicted Paris, Rome and some of the Continental cities where there was too much sounding of horns. However, it ought not be allowed to get abroad that the sounding of the horn should be avoided or that it is amateurish. In my experience, a very high percentage of accidents occur because of the failure of motorists to sound their horns. The position ought not to arise where it will become a sort of principle in a way and a sort of pride in another way to go a long journey through the city without sounding the horn. I am not to be taken as in any way saying that a person is entitled to sound the horn and blast his way through traffic or at a crossroads. Not merely would that be entirely wrong but it would be entirely negligent and it is often held to be so.

I have emphasised the necessity for the co-operation of the public, the necessity for the education of the motoring fraternity rather than a multiplicity of small, pin-pricking prosecutions and the necessity for dealing with big issues rather than small offences. That is the proper approach to the solution of our difficulties.

Any points of view I have to put forward will have to await the detailed consideration of each section of the Bill. I agree with the Minister that it is everybody's duty to make his contribution. I should like to dwell on many details now, such as the onus of proof, to which Deputy M. J. O'Higgins referred. However, I shall mention only two or three.

In the definition section, we find the definition of "owner," for the purposes of the Bill, as including, in the case of a mechanically-propelled vehicle which is the subject of a hire purchase agreement, the person in possession of the vehicle under the agreement. The Minister and his Department should consider whether opportunity should not be taken in this Bill to deal with a very serious menace in the motor industry and for people purchasing motor cars. I refer to hire purchase. The Minister knows that, when a motor car is purchased, it is registered and the owner gets a registration book, sometimes called a log book. Some of the greatest and most cruel frauds have been perpetrated by the sale of motor cars, which, in fact, at the time of the sale were the subjects of hire purchase agreements. There is no way in which one can find out what the position is unless one happens to be a member of certain trade organisations.

I suggest to the Minister that this is of such importance and is such a vital matter that he ought to put into this Bill a provision that, when a motor car is registered, the registration book should contain particulars of any outstanding hire purchase on that car. Hire purchase companies can see to it. In my submission, there ought to be an obligation upon them to see to it that, when they advance money on a hire purchase agreement, the registration book contains an entry of that hire purchase transaction so that anybody buying the car from the apparent owner would have some sort of protection.

Deputy O'Higgins and Deputy Kyne dealt with the question of driving tests. Again, I suppose I am in a minority in my view about driving tests. I think the Minister in putting into the Bill the provision about driving tests was probably wise, but I do not think it would matter anything worth talking about from the point of view of road safety or the prevention of accidents. If particulars and statistics could be obtained of all the accidents that have occurred, I would venture to suggest —I do so from my own knowledge and experience of dealing with cases in court—it would be discovered that it was not the beginner, the amateur or the person who had not got a road test who causes accidents. It was the experienced driver who knew his way about, who was very expert in the handling of the car but who was so conscious of his own ability, as he thought, that he could not possibly be guilty of negligence and he took the chance. It is the experienced driver, the man one might expect to have sufficient experience to avoid any danger, who is responsible for most of the accidents. Very few accidents are caused by amateurs or inexperienced drivers because they take very good care to avoid danger for their own safety. The man who thinks nothing can happen to him—the experienced man—is the menace on the road.

Am I right in my recollection that a racing driver, one of the most experienced drivers in the world, was killed in a road accident in England? Am I right in thinking also that another person was convicted by a jury of his peers in England—a champion driver —of a road traffic offence? That illustrates the point I am making. While I say that the Minister is wise in putting this into the Bill, I do so because there is a sort of public opinion that attaches undue importance to road tests. Until that bogey is removed from the public mind, people will think that if there were road tests there would not have been so many accidents. Give them the road tests. In my view they are not worth the paper they are written on in the Bill.

May I also in connection with this matter refer to the question of women drivers? Everybody thinks that women drivers are a menace. I venture to suggest that if you got statistics of motor accidents there would not be 2 per cent. of the cases coming into court in which women were the defendants. I am convinced that these are absolutely accurate views on a matter in relation to which the public have an extraordinarily inaccurate opinion.

I am entirely opposed to the principles of fines on the spot. I would impress on the Minister the desirability in the public interest to withdraw these provisions in the Bill. I think they will be a source of grave public danger and scandal. They will not achieve anything that may be intended to be achieved by them. I think they were introduced very tentatively in England only very recently. I wonder has the Minister given any consideration to the way these fines operate in America?

We have a very good Garda Force now. We can congratulate ourselves that at the end of 40 years the members of the force, which was set up in trying circumstances, have emerged with a reputation for complete integrity and lack of corruption which is unequalled in any part of the world. Here is a way that may eat into that very happy position. Here is a way which may create injustice and bring about that public annoyance against the traffic code which may result in preventing its getting the full support of public opinion.

Who is going to pay the fine on the spot? Either it will be the rich man, who is able to afford it, able to afford to pay for the luxury of parking his car in the wrong place—a minor offence; it does not matter to him— or the person who is worried and annoyed at the loss of time or the indignity of having to go to court. Though he is convinced he is right, he will pay the fine rather than go to court. Many a person would say he was in the right. A friend of mine, who has the utmost respect for the law and took tremendous care as he thought to conform with the traffic regulations, was stopped some years ago by a Garda. He was told that he had infringed some regulation. He ought to have gone to the right or the left. My friend said he had gone to great trouble to conform to what he thought was the regulation. The Garda said to him: "Look here, if you give any more ‘guff', I will bring you to a place where my word will be taken against yours." That was particularly amusing to me, knowing that the man in question was a most law-abiding citizen.

The Gardaí are human and sometimes they have to put up with a lot of impudence and arrogance from motorists but do not many Deputies know that they give lectures to motorists on the sidewalk, reading them homilies and enjoying the little power they have at the time? Nothing will arouse more irritation; nothing is more likely to cause disrespect for the law and resentment against the enforcement of the law. People will say: "To the mischief with you; there is your money", although convinced that if they went to court, even in spite of the fact that the police evidence may often be accepted as against the evidence of defendants, the charges may be dismissed. When you go to the district court, you think you may have the best case in the world, but you have the worst chance of having your case dismissed. Accordingly, people who do not want to waste time, even though they are convinced they have a good case, will pay up with a feeling of injustice and pique and annoyance against the Garda and will never forget it. Although I have every confidence in the Garda and every respect for them, a position in which that may happen must not be allowed to arise. Perhaps I may at the moment be in a minority but I feel so convinced that I would argue with the Minister and the House that it is not worth taking the risk of having this section in the Bill.

I should just like to mention my complete agreement with the provisions of the Bill dealing with lorries and the lighting of lorries. They have been the cause of frightful tragedies. If you go on the continent, you will see these big lorries with trailers lit up like liners and outlined in every detail, or at least the length and breadth. Where there is a trailer attached to the truck or the lorry, there is something to indicate to those coming behind that there are two vehicles and not one. I would suggest to the Minister that when the regulations in these respects are being made the continental system should be adopted. There have been frightful tragedies and decisions of the Supreme Court have been that people who run into these unlighted lorries, because they are perhaps guilty of the slightest degree of negligence, can get no compensation or redress. That is one of the matters which require great attention.

On the subject of lorries, anybody who has driven behind these big lorries, particularly when they have these trailers attached, knows that one can never tell when it is safe to pass them. Speaking by and large, they do not go too fast—they maintain a normal rapid speed—but if they are going to move out or going to turn into a side road, you merely see the tips of two or three fingers being extended through the front window, if you are lucky, or sometimes you will see a dim sort of light coming on at the back through the mud and dirt. There should be an indicator-arm the length of a human arm at the front of the lorry which will be visible at all distances and people should not have to rely merely on seeing the tips of two or three fingers being extended through a broken side window or the touching of a brake pedal.

One matter which I think should be considered, although the Minister apparently has considered it and decided against it, is the question of the insurance of passengers. I think he should reconsider it. In the last few days, a Private Members' Bill was introduced in the British House of Commons to provide for the compulsory insurance of passengers in cars. It was given a Second Reading and the English Government have received it with an open mind. More serious consideration should be given to that.

One section on which I have very strong views is the section with which Deputy O'Higgins dealt. It is the section dealing with the reimbursements of hospitals. I do not think that the Minister or his advisers really understood or appreciated the problem involved. This section replaces an earlier section of the 1933 Act which provided that hospitals could get a certain figure from the insurance company in respect of the person who is injured. What is provided here is that where there is an injury to a person—I am paraphrasing it a bit—in a public place, caused by a mechanically-propelled vehicle, and he has good cause of action against a person who is insured, then the hospital can recover a certain amount of money within certain prescribed limits. In other words, the hospital is not to get the full cost of treating the patient, because it is to be within certain prescribed limits, prescribed by the Minister.

I do not think there should be any limit except the limit imposed by the law on the measure of damages a person gets in a successful action for negligence, what the jury think is reasonable. That is the only limit there should be for a hospital. Then there is what, to my mind, is a most peculiar provision, that if the injured person receives treatment in a health institution, within the meaning of the Health Act, the health authority does not get anything, as far as I can make out.

There is another matter to which I would draw the Minister's attention. I shall be dealing with it on Committee Stage. There is a reference to an injury caused to a person by negligent action in a public place. A "public place" is referred to in the definition section as being "any street, road, or other place to which the public have access with vehicles." Suppose there is an avenue leading up to a house and a person is travelling in a taxi and the taximan is negligent and the person is injured and brought to hospital. That avenue is not a public place, or may not be under the section, and the hospital may not be allowed to recover. That is a small point but I am merely mentioning it now for the Minister's consideration.

The real position that should be faced by the Minister in the interests of some degree of certainty is the point that is argued every day in the High Court and every day the circuit court is sitting in Ireland: what are the effects of the provisions of the Health Act on surgeons, physicians, radiologists, physiotherapists and the hospitals in respect of the recovery of damages from a negligent person who has to pay damages for his admitted negligence? What is the effect? Insurance companies are getting away with it at the expense of the taxpayer and the ratepayer. That, in my view, is not proper and this occasion should be availed of to put it right.

I have, I think, judicial approval for what I have to say. At least I am going to say it, whether I have or not, because it is my firm conviction that where a person is injured through the negligence of another person and the insurance company has to pay for it, he is entitled within the limits of what a jury thinks reasonable, and only within those limits, and only circumscribed by those limits, to get the best possible medical and surgical care in order to repair the damage the negligent person has inflicted on him through his injuries. That is a human proposition and I believe it to be a legal proposition. He is entitled to get the best medical and surgical attention and the negligent person ought to pay for it. Not merely should he pay it, but it is in his own interests that the person should get the best medical and surgical attention, because the quicker the injured person is made better, the less he will have to pay and the better the job done on him, the less damages he will have to pay. Everybody who has experience of these things knows that the most extraordinary and beneficial results are being achieved by surgeons, physicians, specialists of all kinds, plastic surgeons, orthopaedic surgeons and all the rest of them throughout the length and breadth of this country, arising out of motor accidents. Those people, specialists, orthopaedic surgeons, physiotherapists, surgeons of world renown, from the point of view of their work, are met calmly by the insurance companies with a dismissal by saying: "This man was brought to a health authority hospital after the negligent person had injured him." That is wrong.

I do not understand, first of all, why the provision in the Acts should be there at all, except to make it clear that no negligent person who has to pay damages for his admitted or found negligence can get away with relying upon the Health Acts. That is all you have to do and the lawyers and the jury will do the rest. Why put it in at all? A person is injured on the road. If he is seriously injured, it is quite clear he has no choice as to where he will be brought. Even if he is not seriously injured, he is not thinking of a negligence action; he is thinking of what is wrong with him; he is thinking: "Am I bad?"; but in most cases the person who is injured in a motor accident is brought to a hospital not of his choice and is usually treated by physicians or surgeons not of his choice. Then, if he happens to be close to a health institution and has to be got to a health institution straight away, he is met by the insurance company who has to pay, saying: "You are entitled to treatment under the Health Acts. We are not going to pay." It is the taxpayer who will pay.

I do not care what the position in life may be of a man or a woman who is injured in an accident, whether he or she is a poor person, a rich person or a not so rich person; he or she, whatever his or her walk in life, is entitled to the best treatment available, not merely in their own interests but in the interests of the defendant in the action.

This matter, I would respectfully suggest to the Minister, ought to be considered. This section, in my opinion, is of no earthly use whatever. It is waste paper. It provides that the health authority cannot get anything but the other authority can sue the people. They can do that at present without any legislative authority and the only effect of this section is to limit the amount of money the hospital can get. They are entitled to get it, provided they prove it is the ordinary charge. They are entitled to get it from the plaintiff who recovers it from the insurance company in the accident. Why should it be put in merely because the 1933 Act had it in? I do not think the section in the 1933 Act dealing with this matter has ever been availed of at all. I do feel, certainly, very strongly, that the section ought to be left out altogether and instead of it, there ought to be put in a clear provision saying that where there has been an accident because of the negligence of a third person, that person who has caused the injury is liable, whether the person is entitled to free medical services or not. What this Bill says is that the rate-payers and the taxpayers are to foot the bill, with some limited exception, for a negligent offender. That is a wrong principle, wrong in law and in morals.

There is another matter I should like to speak about. I rather agree with Deputy Kyne in his view that accidents are not caused to any very large extent by drunken driving. There is certain drama about that. Of course, a drunken driver on the road may cause the most frightful accidents and the astonishing, the miraculous thing is, even if you have the misfortune to be behind a drunken driver, how he avoids doing more damage than he eventually does. That is the miraculous thing about it. The real menace is not the drunken driver. The White Paper says—I do not know what it means—that this definition of "drunk in charge of a car" makes it clear that he is not drunk in the social sense. I do not know what that means—how you are drunk in the social sense—but I do know, because I have had experience of it, that one glass of whiskey may not make a person drunk either in the legal sense or in the social sense but may cause a person driving a car to be so upset in his judgment that he will cause a very serious accident. I had experience of that myself. That is where the danger lies. The people who go out to public-houses in the country and are not drunk either in the social sense—whatever that may mean—or in the legal sense, which you can only guess, will have a few and will be "just nicely". Dare anybody say to them that they ought not drive the motor-car and there will be a row. They are the menace and it is very difficult to catch them. Of course, the public do think that drunk in charge of a car is a terrible thing and I think I must here express the view—I am sure it will be unpopular—that the penalty imposed in this Bill is too high —imprisonment. It will defeat itself. Many a time I have spoken in this House on the evil of trying to provide fixed penalties and minimum penalties. This will destroy itself. If you use that phrase to which I so much object, the difficulty of securing a conviction for drunken driving will be greatly increased because of the heavy penalty. I have no doubt about that at all. It is a bad thing to do. Leave that to your district justices and circuit court judges and to your jury, if you want to.

I do not agree, either, as I have already indicated, with this new offence of dangerous driving. I hope the Minister will give it consideration for Committee Stage. If he does not remember it, I will put down an amendment to bring it to his recollection. I think that particular offence, if it is persisted in as a new offence, ought not to be an offence that is triable by jury, at the start, at all events, unless the accused wishes it, and that it ought to be such offence as will be triable by his consent before a district justice and that it ought not to be sent on indictment unless the district justice does so.

I should like to say a few words about parking attendants and then finish. I do not know whether it would be possible to devise a scheme by which, instead of these people having casual occupation, depending upon either the generosity of the motorists or the prescribed fee, as is apparently to be done under this Bill by the Minister—there would be a system of authorised parking attendants who would be guaranteed a living wage, a decent wage and permanent employment. They are a class of people who are very courteous, very helpful and deserving of a little more consideration than they have got up to the present.

Major de Valera

This measure is welcome and represents a considerable effort in the way of preparation. It is obvious that the House is glad to have it. This remark, however, should be made on the Second Stage. This Bill, as all Bills should be, but particularly this one, is in the form of proposals to the House. It is to be anticipated that a proper Committee discussion of the Bill will alter it in various respects and considerably improve it. I do not want to anticipate that Committee discussion, but there are a couple of principles in the Bill which we might consider at this stage.

The first is that, although it is extraordinarily comprehensive and represents a very sincere effort to isolate the problems and to deal with them specifically, much of the effect of the Bill will depend on the regulations made thereunder. There is a peculiar situation here in regard to road traffic. It is patently impossible here to legislate in all detail, and it would be necessary on two fronts to provide for regulations. First, regulations will be necessary in regard to what one might call the ordinary statutory provisions, particularly in relation to authorisations like driving licences, licences for vehicles, and so forth, and criminal jurisdiction.

Then, there is the administrative side to this problem. There is not only the question of vehicles, drivers and the criminal law relating thereto, but there is a big group of administrative problems because of traffic congestion and the large number of vehicles on the road, and there regulations will be equally necessary. I do not think any of us will quarrel with the necessity for regulations in this code. We would all argue that it would be much better left to regulations. Therefore, the only question remaining is the principles governing these regulations. The administrative side of regulations is a matter of public convenience largely, and these regulations have to be coordinated by the central Government through the local government organisation. I think we can quickly pass over these and leave them in the competent hands of the administration of the day, the Departments concerned, to see that a workable code is produced.

It is another matter when we come to regulations where the individual is concerned. Such things are, for instance, the shifting of the onus of proof in the Bill, the facilitation of a prosecution in technical matters and fines on the spot. Again, one must take a reasonable approach in such matters. In regard to the facilitation of the prosecution in technical matters, provision should be made to clear a purely technical point out of the way if it is going to obstruct the course of justice.

Such technical points usually arise in some such way as this. Some clever lawyer in court puts an unforeseen interpretation on a section or a number of sections placed together and in that way succeeds in blocking the offering, say, of some cogent evidence or succeeds in defeating the charge in some other evasive way. That, in its essence, is inequitable and I see no reason why such a technical point should not be defeated. On the other hand, a technical point can be a very valuable safeguard in a substantive defence in certain cases, whereas if that technical defence were not there there would be very great difficulties in the way of the defendant's putting up a substantive defence.

In short, the danger here is that the matter may be made too automatic for the prosecution. The Garda may be relieved of the duty of completely preparing the case. With that danger there, I think that on the Committee Stage we should examine every single provision in regard to onus of proof and decide them on their merits as they arise. For the rest, if there is any question of regulations, I would urge upon the Minister to have regard to the point of view which says in these cases: "It is better that a guilty man go free than that an innocent man be convicted."

With regard to fines on the spot, again the details can be dealt with on Committee Stage. I merely wish to refer to a couple of principles here. There is no doubt there is considerable danger in this system. There are the dangers to which Deputy Costello referred. In the long term there is the danger of corruption. The immediate point, which I think involves more danger, is that the person can pay, in a sense, for the privilege of breaking the law, which I think is always a bad thing. It is always a bad thing to be in a position to pay automatically for the privilege of breaking the law. I would prefer to have some other sanction added to it.

Take the various cases that can arise. There may be a night worker who lives outside the centre of the city and who has a scooter, a motor cycle or a small car. He commits a parking offence and is fined on the spot. That may be quite a serious matter to him. Although he has broken the law it might be considered that there were extenuating circumstances for what he did. On the other hand, someone may drive into the city to do shopping or go to a theatre. That person may decide deliberately to park the car illegally and that it is worth paying the fine for doing so. There is a danger therefore that this provision will simply mean a charge for parking if there are not certain safeguards involved in it.

In this regard the provision for appeal to the court which the Minister mentioned is essential. I wonder will it be sufficient. It will all depend on the attitude which the court takes in these matters. If the man can elect to go to court that is in itself an adequate safeguard. It is one of those corrections which probably modern times demand. However, I do not think we should adopt it without a great deal of care. It can be demoralising for police officers in the long term and it can work an injustice in its operation.

Some of us who have seen what can inadvertently happen in courts can see the way in which such provisions may go wrong. I remember in a circuit court on one occasion seeing two cases tried. They were essentially the same —driving offences—but in one case it was a lorry driver and in the other, a young lad whose father gave him too much money. The judge inflicted a very heavy fine on the young fellow, admittedly, but it was paid up immediately—by his father—and he went scot free. The unfortunate lorry driver was not in a position to pay the small fine imposed on him. I think he got a week in jail but he lost his job. That is the type of problem that arises in regard to parking offences and I think that we must take those offences as serious, not merely trivial, because of the administrative problems involved.

Before going on to deal with Deputy Costello's views on criminal law and the relative seriousness of offences I want to make this point. There has been a suggestion—I know the Deputies who have made the point may have implied that the suggestion was subject to careful correction and I do not want to impute motives to them —that Gardaí can be arrogant, that motorists can be arrogant and that Gardaí can, as Deputy Costello phrased it, "show their power," but I wonder do we realise what the Gardaí, particularly in Dublin, have to put up with? If anybody goes to O'Connell Bridge at peak traffic period on an average day and takes time to watch the problems with which the Gardaí have to cope, he will probably come away with a very favourable impression of the courtesy of the Gardaí.

I know that in recent years it has been the policy to encourage the Gardaí to be courteous. I wonder if that policy may not have gone too far; perhaps in some cases they could have been more forthright. I do not think it fair to criticise our police force—certainly in Dublin at the moment—or accuse them of lack of courtesy or of anything like bullying. We must give them facilities to do a very difficult job and here we have to face the distinction between the administrative problem and what I might term the general problem of criminal law and traffic control.

Deputy Costello was very scathing about attention to what he called minor offences, parking, and so on in Dublin, but I wonder does he not realise that parking and control of traffic, cyclists and pedestrians, are major social and even commercial problems in this city that raise very serious considerations for both the Ministers for Justice and the Minister for Local Government. This has arisen from the growth of the city. We cannot close our eyes to these problems and worse still we cannot just legislate for them as if they were minor offences. I think it is a fundamentally wrong approach for anyone to regard offences in regard to parking as purely minor. From the point of view of moral turpitude and criminal law, they are minor but, from the administrative point of view, they are very serious matters and also from the points of view of the commercial and social life of the city and the general morale of citizens.

How is that situation to be met? I think we must face the fact that, once a code is defined, we shall have to enforce it. I have been very disturbed as a Deputy to have observed personally, within the past few months, a great increase in the number of people who take chances with traffic lights. I do not blame the Gardaí in this respect. I agree with Deputy Costello that they have so many other duties that they cannot watch junctions as one would wish. I should like to see them watch traffic lights and road junctions to a greater extent because I have seen too many cases of people crashing lights, not waiting for the lights to change, or even going against the lights, just because they see that there is nothing coming directly against them.

This shows a lack of discipline that is inherently dangerous and which requires some measure of control. It may be a minor offence from one point of view but it is a very serious one from another point of view.

I disagree with Deputy Costello in measuring these things purely on the number of accidents that happen in such cases. If only one or two serious accidents happen—and such have occurred—as a result of practices of that sort, it is sufficient to make us legislate for serious cognisance of such offences, but above all there is the question of the overall regulation of traffic and getting a smooth flow, and offences of that sort should be adequately dealt with.

There is also the question of pedestrian crossings. From my own experience I have more than once asked myself whether this experiment is not extremely dangerous in our traffic conditions. People have been killed—I can recollect one case in which the culprit was not found—on pedestrian crossings. There is the danger that one motorist may pull up to give way to a pedestrian and that another motorist may flash by and pick up the pedestrian on his bonnet or bumper. The proper working of pedestrian crossings is a matter calling for discipline among motorists and pedestrians. I do not regard that as a minor matter and there should be adequate control.

Cyclists also pose problems but I do not share the view that cyclists should be swept off the road. One of the troubles is that we have not been in a position to make adequate arrangements for cyclists in our traffic regulations. When Deputy Costello talks about minor offences in such contexts I think that what I call the general administrative point of view must be taken into account.

As regards the dangers of the road, I know that a number of people will concentrate on the casualties of the road and will be tempted to look at this Bill purely from that point of view. Everybody will probably have their own views and opinions on such matters. My own view is—it is a purely personal view—that speed of itself is not perhaps always the direct cause of accidents but, in practice, having regard to time and place, speed and lack of consideration for other road users are the major causes of most accidents. I welcome the suggestion of prescribing speed limits in certain built-up areas. That is long overdue. I know the experiment in Bray was nullified by a court decision but, if we have speed limits in built-up areas, we shall at least reduce the casualties amongst children. I do not think it would impose any particular hardship on motorists to have a reasonable speed limit in built-up areas. All too frequently one sees cars at all hours of the day and night being driven furiously through the streets, the drivers taking chances which, if fortune went against them and someone ran out, would inevitably result in fatality.

This question of speed must be taken not only in conjunction with speed limits in relation to place and time but it must also be taken in conjunction with consideration for other road users. It is often the driver who is not driving at any great speed—in some cases driving a vehicle which is not capable of any great acceleration —who is involved in a serious accident because he passes out a horse and cart at a bend, negotiates a corner carelessly, or cuts a corner. It is, too, the driver who will not reduce speed coming to a bottleneck or one of those crests where one cannot see what is coming. It is these things which cause most accidents and it is these things which should occupy our attention in our effort to improve the situation in relation to road casualties.

I can see only one way out. First, there should be such reasonable regulations as speed limits in built-up areas. Where it is feasible to have particular regulations at particular points, then we should have those particular regulations. After that, there is the problem of getting people to observe the regulations. That problem will not be solved by relying exclusively on a criminal code. It will not be enough for us here to prescribe penalties and leave it to the courts to enforce those penalties; that will go a certain distance but it will not go the whole way.

Fundamentally, our approach must be different and I want to congratulate the Minister for introducing this aspect into the Bill. Success can be achieved only by education. Here is where driving tests and control of the issue of driving licences come in. One speaker referred rather slightingly to the proposed driving tests. I think he said that, if the public want them, we should have them, but they will not improve the situation. They will not improve the situation perhaps from the point of view of the reckless driver, but, overall, if properly implemented, this scheme will do more than all the penal legislation. If we have a proper system for educating drivers in the rules of the road, in courtesy on the road, in consideration for other road users, in the proper handling of their vehicles and correct observance of the code, we shall in time get a much more uniform and responsible standard of driving. It is not a fair argument to say that racing drivers and expert drivers have been convicted of speeding and other road offences and, therefore, driving tests serve no useful purpose. That is to miss the point. The point is that if you have a uniform system for testing a driver and a vehicle, backed by an adequate system of supervision and, in the last analysis by a criminal sanction, you will get more uniform driving and that will do much more than many other proposals put forward from time to time to decrease deaths on the road.

One of the troubles about our driving is, in my view, the fact that we are all rather individualistic. People do not uniformly observe rules, particularly in built-up areas, with regard to traffic lanes. Drivers are not inclined to give way. Sometimes one almost gets the impression that, if another driver wants to pass out, that is taken as a challenge, as an insult. I have often watched a driver trying to pass out. It is an immediate signal for an instantaneous reaction on the part of others to prevent his doing so. That is due, perhaps, to different interpretations as to what should be done in a particular case. Now all that can be got over by this system of education and that is why I think this provision in the Bill a good one.

Again, it is not so much a question of the actual competence of the individual as his competence to work within the scheme. Anyone who looks at traffic in a city like Paris will understand the point I make. The traffic is fast and apparently chaotic. It is, however, extremely well co-ordinated and there are remarkably few accidents simply because there is a uniform outlook amongst road users. If these driving tests and the other provisions in the Bill foster that uniform outlook, that will do more than many other things which have been suggested to make our roads safe.

Courtesy and the control of speed at certain points are the things that matter. On the open roads built for speed, speed is not so very important and I would leave it open to argument here as to whether or not there should be speed limits on such open roads. We should, however, be logical and say that we will have a speed limit on the open roads or we will have none. If we decide on none, then we must approach it on the basis that speed as a factor in dangerous traffic must be related to time and place.

Having said that, the question of drink is relevant. From one point of view, it is probably true to say that the danger of drink in this connection is exaggerated. On the other hand, there is this aspect to be considered; this is a danger which can be obviated. The turpitude attaching to an accident resulting in the death or serious injury of another person, where it is attributable to such an optional thing as drink is a different matter from the turpitude attaching to what may be, in the last analysis, inseparable from an error of judgment or an accident, in the proper use of that term. We must not forget that the person who undertakes to drive a car while under the influence of drink is assuming a very serious responsibility vis-à-vis the rest of the community in that, by his very action, he is taking a risk that may have fatal consequences which he need not take.

I therefore think that our outlook on this problem of drunk in charge is a proper one. I agree, however, it is extremely difficult to say what is that which Deputy Costello calls legal, social or just working drunkenness. The trouble is that one does not need to be drunk to be a danger. There is the problem, as Deputy Costello said, that even one glass of whiskey will upset a person's judgment and put him in a position where he will cause an accident which he might not have caused otherwise. On the other hand, I agree from observation it is very often the person who may have had just that limited amount of alcohol who may be particularly careful and who is probably as safe a driver as you will find on the road.

How is one to deal with that problem? We could discuss it forever but we are up against a problem of administration. I can see only one way of doing it. First, we must have severe penalties although it will be hard to convict, particularly where there is real danger and where a person takes a risk he need not take and is apprehended in the doing of it. The other way, and the more efficacious way, is to educate the public conscience and the driver's conscience to the real danger of driving after one has had more alcohol than might be wise. Again, we are back to this question of a driving code and of education. Many people who go out and drive cars irresponsibly in that sense—most of them get away with it —do so out of a lack of realisation of what is involved. But there are responsible drivers who will say: "I am driving, so I am stopping there." Our approach should be to encourage that mentality, but I would certainly leave the sanctions that are there.

There is one section of the Bill which will probably cause some controversy. It is the new provision in regard to dangerous driving. Here you have a difficult problem. It is well known that it is extremely difficult to get a conviction for manslaughter in a case where somebody has been killed on the road. On the other hand, all of us, particularly those of us who have had any association with the courts, know that some very bad cases occur from time to time. I do not see any great danger in this section, although it has been suggested, because of the words in the section "conviction on indictment".

Certainly the crime is serious. If tried on indictment, that means by jury, the defendant gets an adequate safeguard. In the last analysis it is probably better in a case like that to put the thing back straight on the fact of dangerous driving rather than invoke the old law of manslaughter or pin it on a thing like drunkenness, which will frequently be involved in a case like that. Dangerous driving seems to me to be the more direct and businesslike approach to this.

I would object to the section, I hasten to add, if the words "on indictment" were not in it. If this were an attempt to get away from the indictment for manslaughter by having the case tried in the summary courts, I would join with people who would object to it. But in view of the fact that this is to be an indictment in the case of death or serious bodily injury, I think the safeguard is there; and probably that is not only a justifiable provision but a very good one.

In the second subsection, while we have not those aggravating circumstances, there is provision for summary conviction. But, after all, in such cases is it not probably the more direct thing to do and probably the better thing from the legal point of view to leave it to summary jurisdiction? No great injustice will be done. The local circumstances can much better be taken into account in summary jurisdiction than on indictment. I am just mentioning that because objection to that section has been indicated. I do not think that that is serious.

However, there is another thing in the Bill on which I should like the Minister to have an open mind during Committee Stage, as in the case of fines on the spot. In Section 105 there is a reference, as I read it, to the testing of apparatus. It says:

The onus of establishing that speed prima facie may be discharged by tendering evidence of indications from which that speed can be inferred which were given by a watch or electronic or other apparatus...

Fair enough. But it goes on to say:

... and it shall not be necessary to prove that the watch or electronic or other apparatus was accurate or in good working order.

I think that is going perhaps a little bit too far. What it means is this, in its present form. If I have a stop-watch or some other gear and if I am a Garda I can go out and trap a motorist for speeding where a particular limit applies and I can have him convicted although I do not know whether or not that apparatus is working. That is a very objectionable thing from two points of view. I appreciate the difficulties the Gardaí have and I think the Gardaí themselves, and in particular responsible Garda officers, will be the first to realise and admit the necessity for provisions to keep a police force on its toes, both in the interests of the police force and of the public. If we are to take without question what amounts to police evidence, we are doing a disservice to the Garda as a whole. If this provision is to remain in the Bill, there should be some other safeguard to ensure, generally at any rate, if not specifically, that such apparatus is subject to proper maintenance and to some judicial check.

The arguments against that provision are very much like the arguments Deputy Costello put up about the dangers of corruption of the Garda in the case of fines on the spot. When we talk about these things, we are not insinuating that there is any immediate danger, but all lawyers know that these dangers should not be left, if they can be avoided. Dangers of this nature, even though they are hypothetical at this stage, could possibly, in the distant future, become real and, in principle, anyway, they should be obviated. The danger here is the same as the danger in regard to the fines on the spot. The danger is that the Garda could offer evidence which could not be checked and which could possibly even be fabricated because, after all, if you have no check on the apparatus, you are not very far from not having a check on what the apparatus is alleged to have reported.

Of course I see what the Minister is aiming at here. If a man was doing 70 miles per hour through a 30 miles per hour built-up area, the Garda should not be expected to show that the apparatus was working accurately to within one mile per hour. It would be ridiculous to have the charge defeated because the apparatus might not have been measuring quite accurately to, say, a mile per hour. A defending counsel might aim at proving that the apparatus was unreliable, if he could prove a defect at all. I know, and I sympathise with that point of view. Therefore, I ask is there no way of meeting these two problems. Could we not get some general provision, if we cannot get a specific one, which would take away what may be a technical defence?

Is there no way of providing some general check on such apparatus, a check by, say, a physicist, or someone of that type acting for the Department of Justice, who could give evidence that the apparatus was inspected at certain periods, or checked at certain periods, or some general check like that? That would meet the point and would ensure that the court would be judicially certain that the apparatus was kept in reasonably good working order. I am just making that point and we can consider it in more detail on the section. These are the principles which I should like to mention at this stage to guide us on Committee Stage when we shall take the cases in detail.

I have mentioned the question of courtesy on the road. It goes a little further than a question of courtesy; it goes to a question of safety. If drivers realised that courtesy was not just merely a matter of manners but that it was an essential—perhaps the essential—element in road safety, and if they realised that if they had courtesy and consideration for other drivers, we could probably—I will not say eliminate accidents—reduce the rate of accidents to a pure accident rate, something that happens in spite of the best everyone can do. If drivers realised that, realised also that they would not lose an awful lot of time and that they were being Christians in the highest sense of the word, we would have much less to talk about on this Bill. I think we should emphasise that, and if we can get drivers to observe the regulations in that spirit, we will have solved many of the problems the Minister set out to solve in this Bill.

With regard to the licensing of vehicles, insurance provisions and so forth, there is nothing that cannot adequately be dealt with on Committee Stage, so far as I can see. The provision with regard to the parking of vehicles is very welcome. Because of the nature of modern traffic conditions, there is a serious danger from parked vehicles in daylight and in darkness, but those things can be duly dealt with between the Bill and the regulations.

While I am talking about courtesy, there is one last remark I should like to make. As other speakers have said, we should avoid having preconceived ideas about the causes of road accidents. I have already stated my opinion of drunkenness. I would be ruthless with regard to it and to the question of the control of drinking, not so much because it is a major cause of accidents, but because first it is a danger which can be avoided and, secondly, when it does cause an accident, it usually causes a very bad one which is likely to result in death or serious injury to innocent people. For those reasons, I think it is a crime which should continue to attract public odium and severe penalties should be prescribed for it. But we should not mislead ourselves into thinking that if we deal with that problem, we have dealt with all traffic problems. I see it as a question of safety in relation to time and place.

Courtesy, proper driving at bends, crossroads and such places, are important elements in road safety, coupled, of course, with such elementary matters as negligence in parking cars and so forth. Incidentally, Deputy Costello mentioned women drivers. I believe that our women drivers are amongst our best drivers, even though a lady may sometimes assume that it is "ladies first". You do sometimes see a lady who assumes that a man driver will give way.

She is an awful fool if she does in this country.

Major de Valera

I have seen them. I think our women drivers are showing more of that consideration which is necessary for safety on the road than our men. If the men would follow the women in this way, we might reduce our accident rate.

They follow them fairly often.

Major de Valera

There is no use in going off at a tangent in this matter. Safety, courtesy and consideration for other road users is the question here.

I want to pay a tribute to the people responsible for the preparation of this very solid job of legislation. I do not know how far back the Bill goes. I do not know how many people have had their hand in this, but, to all of them the tribute can be paid that, while designed to supplement and take the place of the 1933 Act, the Bill is more than a continuation. There is initiative in it and a genuine attempt to deal with the problems of to-day and the foreseable future.

It is natural that such a Bill will come in for a good deal of analysing on Committee, but that is what a Bill is for. In paying that tribute, we must in particular bear in mind the permanent officers of the Departments of Local Government and Justice. Furthermore, we must not forget the Garda authorities who, I am sure, have been consulted.

And the Deputies who have been shouting for the Bill for the past four years.

Major de Valera

The Departments, the Garda, the Government and the Ministers did the work, whatever about whoever did the shouting. Having had our little exchange, I do not think the Deputy will disagree with me in saying that about the Bill. We have something in this Bill worthy to come before a Parliament and something upon which, in our deliberations and discussions, we can show ourselves worthy and responsible Parliamentarians.

The Minister deserves a word of praise for introducing this very comprehensive measure. If any criticism can be levelled against him and his Department, it is that the Bill did not appear earlier.

The Bill is necessary for two principal considerations. The first is in relation to drivers who take drink and the second is in relation to lack of consideration for other road users, whether they be drivers of vehicles, pedestrians, farmers with carts, tractors or anything else. If the Minister can succeed in reducing the consumption of drink——

He has done that under the Intoxicating Liquor Act; do not worry.

Cases still occur where, having taken drink, a driver gets into a motor car or lorry or on to a motor cycle, to the danger of other road users. Shocking accidents sometimes result. When speaking of lack of consideration, I am not forgetting the speed merchant, Those who take drink and the speed merchant are the two classes largely responsible for road accidents.

We have as good a system of roads as there is in most European countries. Taken all round, our trunk and lesser roads are very good. If some sharp bends still remain, it is because local authorities and corporations cannot provide autobahns overnight. Those driving along our roads should be conscious of that fact.

If the consumption of drink by drivers could be reduced or eliminated and if the speed merchants and some other road users would give the same consideration to others as they expect themselves, then the number of accidents would be reduced by 70 or 80 per cent.

A good deal has been said here tonight about driving tests for newcomers. I take it that "newcomers" are youths of 17 who are applying for a licence for the first time. I have never yet heard of a case where a beginner has had an accident. It seems strange but it cannot be denied. They have not the experience of others who are longer on the roads and who perhaps get a fright on a later occasion, as I did myself.

I believe tests are a waste of time. As the years start to climb up with every person, their sight becomes impaired. Persons with defective sight could be a danger on the road, particularly persons suffering from colour blindness. Tests for youngsters of 17 or 18 are worse than useless. They do not land in the courts; they are not the type who have accidents. As the previous speaker mentioned, it is the too self-confident person who has been on the road a good while and who says to himself: "I can take this chance; I can pass this fellow at this narrow corner" who comes a cropper and finishes up either in the ditch or in the courts.

Occasionally, throughout the year, we read of very sad accidents to young lads with tractors. A tractor is devoid of springs. It has not the wide wheel base of the average motor car or lorry. It can be treacherous. Sometimes we read of tractors overturning and the driver, pinned underneath, is badly mutilated or indeed killed. The Department, through the local authorities or the tractor manufacturers or suppliers, should issue a booklet of simple instructions for those about to use the tractor, especially for the first time. If not handled properly, it can be a very dangerous machine.

This is a very good measure. We hope it will reduce the toll of road deaths. If it induces drivers who have no consideration for others and those who take a drink to pause and think, then it is bound to achieve a very good result.

I join with other Deputies who have extended a welcome to this Bill. It is quite true that it is long overdue. Many changes have taken place in our country during the 28 years since the 1933 Road Traffic Act was passed. Nevertheless, the measure is a most welcome one and I should like to congratulate the Minister and the officers of his Department on a very comprehensive measure which, I hope, will see us through for many years to come.

It is a significant fact that, as the Minister mentioned in his introductory speech, the number of vehicles on the Irish roads today is over 300,000. That fact in itself shows how necessary it is to introduce legislation to cater for this very rapidly growing traffic. In addition, we have an increasing number of visitors' cars coming to this country each year. That influx is bound to increase. That is another reason why we should introduce up-to-date legislation to cater for vehicular traffic.

We have not been entirely neglectful of the traffic problem. The huge expenditure which successive Governments have made on the Irish roads is an indication of our anxiety to ensure that this country will have as good roads as any other country in Europe. I think we have not yet reached that stage but we certainly must be very close to it.

It was sobering to listen to the Minister giving statistics of the number of road accidents last year. The fact that we had nearly 4,000 accidents, which is more than 10 per day, of which 300 were fatal, is a matter for very grave consideration on the part of every public representative. The constructive way in which Deputies on all sides have met this measure is indicative of their interest in the Bill and also their anxiety to help the Minister in every way they can. Other Deputies, who will contribute to the debate on Committee Stage, will be every bit as anxious to try to help the Minister in this important measure.

Several Deputies expressed a point which I believe to be fundamentally true—that all the legislation in the world will not prevent accidents, fatal or otherwise. We would be very foolish, very unwise, to sit back, once this Bill has become an Act, and imagine that all is well for the future. Most of us who contribute to this Bill are drivers and the Deputies who will contribute will also be drivers. If we could say on behalf of all Irish drivers that we always exercise care and consideration on the roads, I do not think there would be any necessity at this stage to introduce the 1960 Road Traffic Bill. Conversely, if you do not exercise reasonable care and consideration, once the Bill is passed, I for one cannot see any hope of the rate of accidents falling.

I think, as some previous Deputy said, that it would be completely unfair to indict the driver completely, to hold him completely responsible for our high rate of accidents. The pedestrian must accept a large share of the responsibility for accidents which happen daily. In that regard there is the type of pedestrian who is commonly known as a jay-walker. I do not see anything in the Bill to control or penalise that gentleman or lady, as the case may be. It might be worth the Minister's while to see if some adequate penalty could be written into the Bill to provide for the obvious culpable faults of this type of pedestrian.

The Minister paid a tribute to the work of the Safety First Association, and I should like to join with him in his remarks about that body. I had some experience of their work and I know the difficulties under which they have laboured for a number of years, not the least of which is a lack of funds. In congratulating the Minister, his officers, Deputies and the Garda, I think we might include the work which this association has done down through the years to try to enlighten and encourage public opinion to take a greater interest in road safety. I do not think anybody in the country will be better pleased than the members of that body that this Bill has been introduced into the House.

As an indication of what a small voluntary body can do, members may know something of the driving competition which the Safety First Association run annually. It is amazing the number of drivers of goods vehicles who have a 25 years and longer accident-free driving record. It shows that, with a little co-operation and a little effort, amazing accident-free records can be established. It seems to me that there is no reason why the same desire to maintain a clean sheet could not be instilled in some of the other sections of the driving community. I am very glad to see that in the Bill there are provisions whereby associations such as the Safety First Association can receive funds to carry on their good work.

As other Deputies have said, this is the type of Bill which is best discussed on Committee Stage. I propose to leave my main remarks until we reach that Stage, but I should like to make one or two further comments on this Stage. The Bill contains three or four main sections on which I should like to make some personal observations. In regard to the introduction of a speed limit, I must say I am one of those who completely agree with this. I do not think there will be any dissent at all in regard to that. I am, however, in some doubt as to what the Minister means by "an urban district". According to the Bill, a 30 mile per hour speed limit will be imposed in county or other boroughs, towns and urban districts. I do not know what an urban district means. Perhaps the Minister would elucidate that when he is replying? Whether it includes a village or a hamlet, I do not know. If it does, I suggest it is hardly necessary to impose a 30 mile per hour speed limit in the case of a main road running through a very small hamlet or village.

I am in agreement with Deputies who spoke against the introduction of on-the-spot fines. I do not think it a desirable innovation. I know that the Bill allows the culprit the option of paying the fine at a particular Garda station within a period of days or allowing the prosecution to go ahead. I do not think that we should put into the hands of the Garda a right to decide the value of a penalty. It would be far better to leave this matter where it stands at the moment—with the courts. In saying that, I do not want to criticise the integrity or capacity of the Garda, but I do not think we should ask them to do something which is at the moment outside their power and which should remain outside it. It might possibly lead to undesirable developments.

Divergent views were expressed on the value or otherwise of driving tests. On balance, I think the driving tests are a welcome innovation for a reason which I think has not been offered in the House. If a middle-aged man wants to take out a driving licence for the first time, he has to undergo this driving test and if he has any defects or any other reason to be doubtful that he will get a licence, it will probably stop him from applying. The mere fact of having to undergo a driving test will prove a useful deterrent to drivers who might otherwise apply for and get a licence. It is quite true, as has been mentioned by several Deputies, that the new and inexperienced driver is not always at fault. It is equally true to say that the new and particularly the young driver shows the most verve or rashness in driving which on occasion has caused some serious accidents.

There is a provision in the Bill with regard to driving licences which states that the owner, the person who has got a driving licence, must sign the licence. I do not quite see the necessity for this section in the Bill. Perhaps when the Minister is replying he might point out the necessity. It seems to me that if you give a person a licence, whether he signs it or not, he has a licence and according to the Bill itself he is responsible under certain sections even though the licence is not signed. It is a minor provision that could be excluded from the Bill. The Bill might include some stringent regulations regarding wandering animals on the roads. They may not be a problem in the city of Dublin but they can be a very serious problem in the country. On the same subject of animals not properly attended to, it is not unusual on country roads to come around a bend, particularly at night, and find a number of animals with nobody in charge of them, or if there is, there is only one man and he is usually on the side away from the driver, or else he is attending the animals and has no light.

There were several references to lighting and I should like to refer particularly to rear lights on bicycles. Everybody who has driven a car will agree with me that the modern reflector is not sufficient. I should like to see the Minister bringing in regulations to increase greatly the size and the strength of rear reflectors on bicycles. This, again, is a problem that probably does not affect the larger cities but it certainly does affect the rural areas.

I do not know if there is any way in which the Minister can control pedestrians on country roads. The number of times that one finds pedestrians walking on the left-hand side of the road, on the driver's side of the road, is amazing. I do not know whether it would be feasible to introduce legislation to compel pedestrians to walk on the right-hand side, in the interests of their own safety. If it could be done it would prevent a number of accidents.

I think it was Deputy Costello who referred to drivers not dipping their lights. I should like to refer to people who drive through cities with their headlights dimmed when it is quite unnecessary to have them on. Most of our cities and towns are well lighted and it should be quite sufficient for a driver to travel with only sidelights on. In fact most of them do but one does see the odd driver who drives with his headlights dimmed.

Another matter to which I should like to refer is the minimum age at which a driving licence can be taken out. For the past 28 years we have allowed a young man—and presumably a young lady—to take out a licence to drive a motor cycle at 16 and a light motor vehicle at 17. I may be in a minority but I think 16 is too young to permit a young man to drive a motor cycle. There should be a minimum age of 18, to cover all types of vehicles. With the amount of traffic on the roads nowadays, with increased speeds and with the increased number of people applying for licences, it would be only sensible to introduce a minimum age of 18.

A number of references have been made to drunken drivers. I do not want to expand the discussion on that point. It is a very difficult thing to decide and the Bill wisely refers to persons who are incapable, for reasons of having taken too much drink or drugs, of proper control of a car. While I am in complete agreement with the Minister in coming down heavily on the drunken driver, I wonder is it wise to withdraw the Probation of Offenders Act? Would it be extending one's imagination too much to suggest that there might be a case where a man had one or two drinks or one or two drugs, if that is possible, and there might be reasons which would make him the innocent party and the courts would not have the opportunity of applying the Probation of Offenders Act? In such a case it might be well to leave to the justice, who is completely impartial in the matter, the right to apply the Probation of Offenders Act. I know the Minister has been encouraged to take this rather serious step because public opinion has been very much aroused against the drunken driver, although statistics will show that the number of accidents due to excessive drinking is probably fewer than the number due to other reasons.

There is one section of our society which so far have not been mentioned. I should like to make a brief reference to the necessity for inculcating a sense of respect for users of the road and a sense of the dangers on the roads amongst school children. I know that certain instructions are given to school children in some schools by members of the Garda. I wonder if the Minister could do anything in this comprehensive measure to encourage greater and more extensive instruction in schools. In places outside this country, it is not unusual to see miniature vehicles and miniature road signs used for educating school children into an awareness of the dangers of the road. I suggest we might extend that practice here. It would be very useful indeed. The right time to make the individual conscious of the dangers of the road is when he is young and can absorb what he hears and profit by the instruction given him.

Lastly, I should like to say that the success of this measure depends to a great deal on co-operation between the Minister's Department, the Garda, the local authorities, and finally the public, both drivers and pedestrians. If we inculcate in the general public a sense of responsibility and of the desirability of improving the situation here, this measure will be a success. If we do not, the measure is bound to fail.

I should like to join in Deputy Costello's appeal to the Minister to implement all sections of the Bill at the earliest possible date. The Minister will find that he will get every possible co-operation from Deputies in pushing the Bill through the House. I wish the Minister every success and I hope that the Bill will pass all stages quickly without acrimonious or unnecessary disagreements.

Everybody agrees that proper legislation to provide against accidents has been due for a number of years and that it was necessary to provide for a proper flow of traffic. It is only right that I with other Deputies should congratulate the Minister and his officials on the introduction of this Bill. We should bear in mind, however, the number of accidents in this country over the years. The evils of driving while drunk and abuses of that kind have been mentioned in this House since the debate opened but it is significant that it is 27 years since we had the last Road Traffic Bill.

This Bill may be the responsibility of the present Minister for Local Government inasmuch as he has introduced it but, in actual fact, a Bill has been hatched by various Ministers for Local Government over the last 20 years and by various officials in the Department of Local Government during the same period. So, while we may express concern about traffic problems it would appear that we did not approach the task of dealing with those problems with great enthusiasm in recent years. The necessity for an up-to-date traffic code has been generally realised, especially in view of the tremendous increase in the car population since 1933 and of the changed conditions generally.

Nobody expects too much of this Bill because, as has been repeated ad nauseam, legislation of itself will not eliminate accidents. The emphasis should be on courtesy on the roads and road manners.

There is another matter which the Minister mentioned but did not dwell on at length and this may not be an appropriate occasion to discuss it. I refer to the condition of the roads which, in my view, is responsible to a large extent for accidents. Accidents may be attributed to drink, defective vehicles, bad manners, discourtesy and so on but in my opinion the condition of the roads in some parts of the country is responsible for many of the accidents that take place on them.

The Minister referred to loss of life, economic loss and commercial loss. We will all agree with the Minister in that regard. I say deliberately that if much more money were spent on the roads, some accidents could be eliminated. Some people say that we spend too much money on roads and that such expenditure is not productive. It may not be productive in the strict sense but improvement of roads may prevent loss of life and loss to the economy and to the commerce of the country. Money so spent would be well spent. There are many other good reasons why the roads should be maintained in a satisfactory condition but it might be more appropriate to refer to them in the debate on the Estimate for the Department of Local Government.

I want briefly to comment on the provisions of the Bill. A very detailed White Paper was prepared by the Minister. I notice that where a person who is driving a car is found guilty of an offence and is described as the user and not necessarily the owner of the car, the owner is liable. Let us bring it down to cases. If the Minister gives me a loan of his car and I park it incorrectly in O'Connell Street, is the Minister also liable for a parking offence? That is ridiculous. On the other hand, if I take the Minister's car without his knowledge and commit a parking offence I should be the person to be charged. If anybody willingly lends me a car and I park it in the wrong place in Westmoreland Street, O'Connell Street or elsewhere, if I am guilty of a driving offence, does that mean that the owner has to be worrying all the time that I have the car in case I commit an offence for which he will be liable under this Bill? I know that the Minister and his officials have given great thought to this matter and there may be an answer to it but on examination it seems to me that these provisions are unfair, if not altogether daft.

I notice throughout the Bill dozens of provisions whereby the Minister may make regulations governing certain things, such as driving licences, testing of vehicles, parking, traffic signals, road speeds and all that sort of thing. I have never seen a piece of legislation that contained provisions to enable a Minister to take power to make so many regulations. I know that it is necessary to make provision in Bills for Ministerial regulations but in this case the Minister has overdone it. In my view he could have embodied many of the regulations which he proposes to make, and of which we know nothing at the present time, in sections of the Bill.

The Minister, therefore, ought to treat the making of regulations under this Bill in a different manner from the making of regulations under other legislation. There have been Bills giving the Minister power to make regulations to a limited extent and it has been argued in the House that legislation by regulation is bad. In many cases, however, it is necessary. In view of the fact that the Minister is taking power to make so many regulations under this piece of legislation, he should appoint an advisory council. He has his advisers in the Department and, I am sure, in the Garda; I do not know whether or not he will consult the local authorities but, there are very many interested parties and the Minister should take power to appoint an advisory council of interested people. There is no necessity to list the people who would be interested in the framing of regulations. I would ask the Minister to include on such a council representatives of the trade union movement who, as I hope to show later, are greatly affected by certain provisions of this Bill.

The much-vaunted Road Traffic Bill that was introduced in Britain recently provides for the establishment of an advisory council. It also provides for the adoption by Parliament of the regulations before they become law. Under our Road Traffic Bill, 1960, the Minister proposes to make regulations and those regulations will have the force of law if after a certain period they are not challenged in Dáil Éireann. That is not peculiar to this legislation. It happens in respect of legislation from various other Departments. However, this is a vital matter. If the Second and subsequent Stages of this Bill are passed, we will be giving the Minister a tremendous amount of power in the number of regulations he may make.

I do not say the Minister will abuse that power. I do not believe he will be advised to abuse that power, but as far as these regulations are concerned, there ought to be a change and the Minister should take the initiative in bringing the regulations before the House and asking the House to approve of them or otherwise. I suggest that especially in respect of this Bill because the Minister will be required to make thousands and thousands of regulations or, since the provisions may be embodied in one regulation, thousands and thousands of new proposals which will affect road traffic all over the country. Again, may I stress in that respect that he should make the decision to consult interested parties; the one in which I have the greatest interest in relation to this Bill is the trade union movement.

There is reference in one of the sections to the power of a local authority to recover the cost of repairing road damage caused by extraordinary traffic. It also provides that C.I.E. are exempt. Is there any saver as far as C.I.E. are concerned? What is peculiar about C.I.E. lorries? C.I.E. lorries have damaged roads, perhaps roads that were badly constructed, but nevertheless they have damaged roads. I realise that in regard to traffic generally, C.I.E. are in a different position and are governed by entirely different and separate legislation. Would the Minister tell us what is to happen, if anything, if C.I.E. damage the roads? Is there any way of recouping the cost of repairing the damage they may inflict on the roads?

Another matter to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention—I do not know whether it has been mentioned in the debate already but I am sure the Minister travelling to and from his constituency and around other parts of the country has noticed it, especially at this time of the year— is the hazard involved in tractors coming out of fields on to the main roads. I believe in other countries there is a provision whereby tractor wheels must be free from mud before they appear on the main roads. I know it is difficult for the farmer, and people will say a farmer has enough to do looking after his farm without having to keep the wheels of his tractor clean. However, there is a colossal amount of mud brought from the field on to the public road. I do not suggest the farmer should bring his brush and polish and clean the wheels, but precautions ought to be taken to ensure a minimum amount of mud is brought out on to the roads. I personally have had one or two nasty skids, having come suddenly round a bend and driven through this colossal amount of mud. I know this does not constitute damage to the road but it is a tremendous hazard, especially at bends.

I assume Section 22 means there will be different types of driving licences for different types of vehicles and while I may not get a licence to drive a bus, a lorry or a hackney car, I may get a licence to drive a private car. Does it mean that while I may not get a licence to drive a private car, I may get a licence to drive a lorry? That is not very clear and perhaps the Minister would elaborate on it, if he has time.

Again, I presume the regulations will say who in the licensing authority will be judge as to the fitness of a person to receive a driving licence. The Minister should give us an example of the rank of the officer, if it is the local authority who will determine these things. I do not want to mention rank or names or anything like that but I trust—this is an exaggeration—it will not be a clerk-typist. I know it will not be the manager but it ought to be somebody of the rank of staff officer or secretary—somebody competent to adjudicate.

Another point I want to raise is not on the question of driving licences particularly. It is on the whole question of offences under the Road Traffic Bill. I have not read the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act, but I see certain portions of it are repealed; there is a reference to it in connection with driving licence disqualifications. Does it mean that now a Minister for Justice cannot give back a driving licence? Does it mean that a Minister for Justice may not remit a fine or prison sentence in respect of a drunken driver? If so, I think the whole House would welcome that. Minister for Justice have a tough time when appeals are made to them by Deputies and interested parties for the return of a driving licence, the remission of a jail sentence for drunken driving or the remission of a fine. While that power might be kept in respect of, say, a fine, where the Minister considers that a person cannot afford to pay, I wonder if it is right that he should be put in the position of having to determine whether or not he will remit a jail sentence for such an offence as drunken driving.

Section 31 provides for the age at which a driving licence may be issued and as far as I can see, it means that the age limit for licences in respect of motor cycles, motor cars and lorries is more or less the same. Has the Minister considered the danger there is on the roads of this and most other countries with the recent re-entrance of the motor cycle and the motor scooter? I am firmly convinced that many of the younger folk in this country who have motor cycles are not fit to have them. Section 31 does not seem to do anything to limit the issue of licences to people of 16 years of age for the purpose of driving motor cycles. I would prefer to see some of these young people of 16 years of age with a motor car than a motor cycle. At least they have four wheels and would always be on the ground; not alone have they to drive these machines but they must balance them as well; being young and adventurous, they want to go as fast as they can and they may constitute, and have constituted, a danger not alone to themselves but to other users of the road.

There is power here to refuse a licence where it is found that the applicant is suffering from physical or mental defects. It would take a long time to discuss and I think it had better be left to the Committee Stage when I anticipate a very long discussion. It is a very delicate subject and again we could only anticipate the regulations to be made by the Minister in an attempt to define the conditions under which a driving licence for such cause would be reviewed and in determining who will be the final judge in the matter and what will be the physical defects or diseases that may be scheduled as those which will prevent a person from getting a driving licence.

Section 38 is a bit of a change, not so much as far as road traffic is concerned but as regards the general legal code. The section provides that the onus of proving that he held a driving licence is on the accused person. Here we have a situation where the person is deemed to be guilty until proved innocent. Many of the legal fraternity in the House can argue on this point much better than I but it is the first time I have seen such a provision in our legal code. We shall await with interest the comments of the Minister when that section is being discussed.

Another provision in that section is that a member of the Garda need not hold a driving licence while driving a car on duty. Does that necessarily mean that he need not have a driving licence at all? Everybody else must have driving tests, must obtain driving licences. Whether that is covered with detail in the section I do not know but it is something the Minister should look into. Even though the Garda may be driving as part of his duty I believe he should have a driving test, apply for, and receive a licence.

We have had reference to the power given to the Minister to provide for speed limits by regulation. The proposal, as it stands in Section 44 and indeed in the whole of Part IV, is a broad one in respect of the whole question of speed limits. It is therefore very difficult to comment on it as we have not got the detailed proposals. Section 46 also gives the Minister power in relation to setting speed limits for certain roads and for special times. I appreciate the Minister cannot give too much detail in that respect and again we can only await the regulations.

I note with pleasure that Section 46 provides—and I quote from the White Paper: "A public inquiry will no longer be necessary before a special speed limit is introduced." The local inquiry, of course, was a farce and it is a good thing that the Minister proposes to do away with that provision.

On Part VI, the part dealing with compulsory insurance, I should like to make a proposal. If I want to go to Wexford County Council on the 1st of January and tax my car I cannot do so unless I produce an insurance certificate. That insurance need only cover me up to two days afterwards and it is accepted. I am not clear as to what the real purpose of the local authority is in asking for my insurance but I assume that it is in order to ensure that I am insured. I think the Minister in framing the regulations in respect of insurance should try to arrive at a system whereby the dates for tax and insurance will coincide. That would be good from the point of view of the protection of the general public and of the drivers themselves. As it is, people may take out tax only at the beginning of the year or of each quarter but one may insure a car at any time. Whether there are any special difficulties in regard to insurance and the date of taking it out I do not know, but it would be well if, on the same date, one could or should—which would be preferable —apply for taxation and insurance for the year or the quarter and also take out a driving licence.

Some revenue—it may not be a large amount—is being lost on the issue of driving licences on any day of the 365, barring Sundays or holidays or holy-days. There must be a great many people who are issued with driving licences which last them anything from one year to almost two years. I suppose many of us in the House have been guilty in that regard; I confess I have, not deliberately, perhaps, but by just forgetting. If I take out a driving licence on the 26th June I do not wait anxiously until the following 26th June; it may be a week or a month afterwards that I discover the driving licence is out of date. Some money is lost to the Road Fund in this way and if the Minister arranged it so that the three things, tax, insurance and driving licence could be obtained at the same time, not alone would it be good protection for the public and the drivers but it would ensure that the maximum amount of money was derived from driving licences.

I am sure the Minister must be aware that scores of people are taking their lives in their hands every day of the week by riding pillion on motor cycles. I am told—I do not know whether it is a fact; I have not made any official inquiries—that the insurance companies will not insure for pillion riding. I do not know what case they have for that but, if it is true, surely there should be some provision in this or in some legislation making it an offence to ride pillion on a motor cycle? If the insurance companies consider it dangerous, if it is a bad financial risk, that implies some extra danger in driving a motor cycle with a pillion passenger. If there is danger, it means that the motor cyclists endanger themselves and perhaps also other traffic on the road.

The Minister should try to get some conclusion in regard to pillion riding on motor cycles. If pillion passengers are not insured they are taking a grave risk every time they take a pillion ride and the Minister should make it an offence to ride pillion or else compel the insurance companies to insure these riders.

As far as parking fines are concerned I agree with Deputy de Valera. As he said, it means that if you have the money, if you are rich, you can afford to pay fines and be done with it there and then, whereas a fellow who cannot pay the parking fine is at a disadvantage. The Minister ought to reconsider that whole section. I am afraid I have no bright ideas but I agree with the viewpoint expressed by Deputy de Valera when he said this could be open to abuse, and not merely from the point of view I have mentioned.

I notice with regard to Section 95— I quote again from the White Paper— that "Road authorities are required to provide traffic signs on roads at the request of the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána and may, with the consent of the Commissioner, provide on roads such traffic signs as they consider desirable". I should like the Minister to explain what that means because there are certain obligations and certain responsibilities on local authorities at the moment as a result of other pieces of legislation of which they do not take the slightest notice. This part of the Bill is concerned with the regulation of traffic. Goodness knows, we need regulation of traffic. The present chaotic situation in provincial towns and cities is something which deters tourists returning to certain parts of this country.

This is an attempt by the Minister— I am sure it will be applauded and approved by the House—to try to provide for a better flow of traffic. If I were a member of a local authority, I would certainly comply with any request made in relation to the erection of traffic signs. One of the stock excuses made by local authorities is that, whilst they would love to introduce traffic regulations, they have no power; and they have no money to erect signs. Every time you talk to them about the erection of signs, they talk in terms of thousands of pounds. What power has the Commissioner to get these traffic signs erected? Can he compel local authorities to erect them? Can the Minister compel local authorities to provide money for the erection of these signs? It is a very important matter.

With regard to the section dealing with the testing of motor vehicles to check for road-worthiness, I should like to know whether or not C.I.E. are exempt. I assume that, if they are exempt, they have some other system to check the road-worthiness of their buses, lorries and other general transport. The Minister should consider whether C.I.E. vehicles should be subject to the same test as other vehicles. If the Minister believes that C.I.E. should be exempt, then he should assure the House that he will take steps to ensure that C.I.E. have an adequate system for checking the road-worthiness of their vehicles for the protection of the public, the crew and staff generally. I do not know whether checking for road-worthiness where C.I.E. are concerned is covered in some other piece of legislation. I do not believe it is. If they are exempt, the Minister should assure the House and the public that C.I.E. are subject to some test— we hope it is a high test—of all public service vehicles under their control.

There is a provision which I believe ought to be in the Bill in relation to the sale of vehicles which are not road worthy. I believe it should be a punishable offence for a vehicle to be transferred or sold without a certificate of road-worthiness. There is a provision on those lines in the recent British Road Traffic Act.

The Minister should concern himself also with the protection of motor cyclists. I referred to the big increase in motor cyclists. These people are supposed to be protected by crash helmets. Is the Minister satisfied that these helmets reach a sufficient standard? The Minister says that regulations for safe driving may include a provision that every car will have a safety belt. In relation to motor cycles, the Minister should ensure that substandard crash helmets are not sold. From what I have been told, crash helmets are the only type of protection a motor cyclist can have. If these helmets crumple up like tissue paper, it would be scandalous if those who purvey these helmets were allowed to get away with the swag.

The Minister should reconsider the section dealing with the cleaning of lorries. It should be an offence for a lorry owner to neglect cleaning a lorry in which he has carried rubble or such material before loading it up with either human or animal feeding stuffs. There does not appear to be any provision along those lines in this Bill.

Generally speaking, the provisions with regard to the hours to be worked by drivers are not unsatisfactory. It does seem, though, that in some cases the hours of driving are still far too long. One section says that, after a 5½ hour journey, a driver is entitled to a half-hour rest. Does it mean that after driving 5½ hours and after getting his half hour rest, he may then be required to drive another 5½ hours? If that is so, I do not think the Bill is much of an improvement as far as drivers are concerned.

I know that drivers have been, and are being, exploited in this matter of driving hours. I know drivers who are required to do two journeys per day of anything from 80 to 100 miles. Imagine a man having to drive 100 miles up to Dublin early in the morning, go back to his base, come up to Dublin again and go back again. And perhaps the same thing happens the next morning. I am not saying he does it every day of the week, but in the heavy season he is required to do it. I know that many of them have not the sense to join a trade union, and if they object, they probably get their cards. If this section is designed to correct a situation like that, the Bill, apart from anything else, will indeed be worth while.

Perhaps the Minister would examine the proposal concerning the mere half hour rest after a journey of 5½ hours. Deputies know that when one has driven from, say, Wexford, Cork, Clonmel, Galway or Kilkenny, one is not in such great form. Those journeys require, perhaps, only three or four hours, but here is a man driving a very heavy truck for 5½ hours. He must be satisfied with a rest of only half an hour and then he is required to drive for another 5½ hours.

He would not get his lunch in half an hour.

He may be paid by the hour.

That makes no difference. Money would not pay him. However, that matter can be gone into more closely on Committee Stage. I am sure the Minister has thought seriously about the exemption from these driving hours provisions of farm and forestry workers. It is all right if he wants to exempt them, but does he not think there should be some provision for them? Under this Bill, it is illegal to require a driver to drive over a certain number of hours, but the Minister says that does not include the man working on the farm or with the Forestry Division because he is off the public road. If there is not the same case to be made for him as the man driving a truck or a tractor on the road, surely there is some case to be made for him? Surely there is some case for the agricultural worker who may be required to sit on a tractor for very long periods, ploughing, harrowing or sowing in a very extensive field, and who then may have to come out on the road and travel back five or six miles to the farm?

I do not know much about the hazards of farming but it is regrettable that in recent years there have been a number of accidents involving tractors turning over in fields. These accidents demonstrate how difficult it must be to keep a tractor in control in fields which are hardly like billiard tables, to say the least of them. It can be very strenuous work. If an agricultural worker, as can happen, is out ploughing from eight in the morning until one in the afternoon and is then required to do a five or ten mile journey on the tractor, surely there should be some conditions of employment for him as far as driving is concerned? Here, however, the Minister does not propose anything at all. The forestry workers, too, engage in an amount of tractor work; and while they may be treated in a different way from other drivers on the public highway, surely there should be some provision for them also?

Many Deputies have seen how traffic in Dublin has been slowed up and held up because when the buses stop to leave down or take up passengers, they do not go into the kerb. Some of them remain six feet or eight feet from the kerb. I made inquiries from the bus drivers through their trade union and was told—and I can quite see the point—that they have not sufficient room to get in. Some motorists overrun the line of the "bus bay", as we might call it. There was also the danger that if the buses went into the kerb, somebody might come up behind and the buses would not be able to get out again. They are, of course, concerned about working to schedule. The Minister should make representations to whoever is responsible to have these bays extended. Generally speaking, the motorists do observe them, but it has been represented to me on behalf of the bus drivers that these bays are too small.

Another thing which holds up traffic in Dublin is that the motorists do not make proper use of the broad streets they have. Many of us have seen traffic go up O'Connell Street in one single stream, whereas there could be at least three lines of traffic. Traffic in many of the large continental cities is kept flowing because the whole of streets is utilised. O'Connell Street and other streets where parking has been restricted could also be utilised in this way.

Finally, I should like to urge the Minister to continue the scientific investigation of road safety, and I believe provision for this is contained in the Bill. It is deplorable that so many are killed on our roads, but it is also deplorable that it takes so long to change legislation. It takes at least five years to correct any mistakes we may have made in road legislation, even though those mistakes may have become evident within two weeks of a Bill becoming law. We are always told to give the new legislation a chance and to see how it will work. I would guarantee the Minister my support and the support of my Party for any legislation he cares to bring in that will improve road safety. As I said, it took us 27 years to get a new Road Traffic Bill, but if the Minister believes in two months' time there is a necessity for further legislation, he should take his courage in his hands, introduce that legislation and if it is on the same general lines as this Bill, I am sure it will have the approval of most Deputies.

I welcome this Bill. I was hoping it might have been introduced any time during the past four years, but I shall not say anything about that. I want to give the Minister every co-operation in endeavouring to make it a good Bill and the same can be said of every member of my Party. Since I became a member of this House six years ago, I have never experienced such public interest in any legislation as has been shown by the public in this Road Traffic Bill. I have had a large number of letters from constituents, and many people have mentioned to me what they thought would be good in the Bill. The Minister knows that himself. He mentioned that the public and many organisations had communicated with him after he published the White Paper. He also said he thought he was safe in assuming that all Parties would welcome the Bill. He is safe in that assumption.

I think we are fooling ourselves about the fine people we are—that we are the best-mannered, the most courteous and the most wonderful people in the world. In some tourist pamphlets we are told about this wonderful courtesy in Ireland, but when we get on the roads we do not find it and we come to the conclusion that there are a terrible number of barbarians driving around the country. All the barbarians are not driving either.

At the outset the Minister spoke of a new approach to social education and said that the solving of the problem must be attacked on many fronts. The Minister has set himself a great task: to educate the people and to try to get them to have some kind of courtesy, consideration and responsibility when they are on the roads. I am not referring to motorists alone but to cyclists and pedestrians also. The reckless conduct of many road users is a scandal. They just do not seem to care. Many of them will not give way whether they are on foot, on bicycles or in cars. How to make the roads safe for the people is one of the Minister's tasks, and I wish him luck in it.

We have had some terrible accidents recently when cars crashed into stationary lorries or stationary cars. I should like to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that in many countries on the Continent it is compulsory for cars to carry two reflector triangles and if they must park on a road, whether or not it is fairly busy, they are compelled to put a triangle at a safe distance from the car both front and rear. There should be provision in the Bill to compel lorry owners to have their lorries painted in brighter colours. A lorry painted in dark red oxide, a brownish colour which cannot be seen on the side of the road, is practically a deadly weapon.

My experience may have prejudiced me. I have been driving for a very long time. I have never had an accident thank God, but I have come to the scene of terrible accidents. I came to this House after having been present at the scene of one accident, and I asked that this Bill should be introduced. It was a cause of much laughter from the Fianna Fáil benches that day, but it was no laughing matter to have to pry open the doors of a car and take three dead people out of it. Exactly a year afterwards to the day, on the same road, after the same sporting fixture, there were two dead men on the road. Their car had crashed into another lorry.

It is about time this legislation was introduced. No matter how many sections he put in the Bill, I would not criticise the Minister. We must try to make the roads safe. Deputy Costello and Deputy de Valera spoke, from what I would say is a lawyer's point of view, about penalties for drunken driving. We have gone on for 27 years during which a man could be drunk and could kill other men or women, be brought to court and get off. If that man had broken a window he would be punished and fined heavily, but if he killed someone while drunk the state of the law was such that he could get out of it—and hundreds did. I am glad the Minister has brought in heavier penalties. If they are not sufficient I would ask him to come back and amend the Bill, and he will have the support of the House.

There are many ways in which I think the roads could be made safer and I submit them to the Minister. There are many sporting fixtures in various parts of the country, and in Dublin, after which cars come pouring out on the way to their various destinations. Many of them seem to think they are in a competition with a £5,000 prize for whoever gets home first. I am really in terror of my life driving after some of those fixtures, especially when I am going home from the Dáil and meet cars rounding corners in twos and threes as if there were a prize for the first car to Dublin. A remedy for that would be police patrols on the road. Gardaí should be sent out in cars of different makes which would not be easily identifiable as police cars. When it was known that there were patrol cars on the road, people would be more careful. I submit to the Minister that it might be better to endeavour to compel people rather than ask them, and if necessary to discipline them.

Another great danger on the roads was mentioned today. It is very hard to pass enormous lorries and trailers and it is harder still to pass them when they are travelling in convoy: lorry, trailer; lorry, trailer; lorry, trailer. A specific minimum space between lorry and trailer should be named. Only today I was travelling reasonably fast and one of these lorries was in front of me. There was a second in front of that. In my mirror I could see a young man in a popular make of car that cannot be driven slowly. He had to pass me and then pass the lorries and we were coming to a corner. I do not know whether it was God, St. Patrick or St. Brigid— it was probably St. Brigid because we were passing through Kildare—saved us.

It was St. Christopher.

I would draw the attention of the Minister to incidents of that type. I would ask him to make a note of the matter and to consult with his officials in the matter of lorries in convoy. There is another matter in relation to lorries; I do not know whether or not the old 1933 Act covered it. It is something that has arisen since the 1933 Act came into the picture. The diesel lorry goes out on the road pouring out fumes. There should be a control of diesel fumes and if people do not keep the jets clean they should be prosecuted.

Lorries appear to be getting bigger and bigger. More and more of them are crowding the roads. I do not mean this to be a crack but, according as railway lines disappear, more and more lorries will be coming along. When will this stop? Will the Minister take power now to intervene at any time so as to control the number of very heavy lorries on the roads?

I mentioned the colour of lorries and of cars. Another great danger on the roads at night is the difficulty of seeing pedestrians in time. I am sure every Deputy has had the experience of suddenly seeing a man in front of him on the road. Because he is in a dark suit you do not see him until you catch up with him. On the Continent they have——

Luminous buttons.

It is better that he should have luminous buttons than to have to pick him up in pieces and try to put him into a hospital. I shall never forget three dead people I took out of a lorry.

Deputy J.A. Costello mentioned motor horns. I do not know what the Minister could do about that. Irish people deeply resent anybody blowing a horn at them. If you go along a road and there are ten or twelve cyclists there and you only give a tip to the horn they will give you the soldier's farewell when you are passing them.

I come now to the subject of dangerous loads. I consider pit props a very dangerous load. They are carried on a lorry with just a single chain holding them. I often saw them slipping. If anybody passed through Kilcullen today about 1.45 p.m. he would see a lorry with a load a yard out on the right-hand side. The lorry was facing south. The whole load had slipped. It was pulling away and going out on the road. It would be a danger to anyone coming against it if the chain broke. I respectfully draw the attention of the Minister to dangerous loads of timber and other materials that could fall off.

Let me come back to patrols. It would be no harm to have patrols on the roads. It would make people keep inside the white line. A very high percentage of drivers, especially of fast cars, think the white line is there as a mark to keep one wheel on either side of it.

A matter for local authorities and one which will have to be taken up, especially in regard to main roads, is milk stops. I am thinking of the benches with the churns on them. I have seen some terrible traffic hazards as a result of these stops. The danger is not so much the milk stop itself as the fact that the lorry will pull up there even though there may be a sharp turn nearby. If you were going at a reasonable speed and anybody came against you the position would be disastrous. That will have to be taken into consideration. We should insert as many safety precautions as possible into this Bill. If we do not, somebody else will have to do it later when people have been killed.

I have an idea that what will happen is that people will get their driving tests from various members of the Garda. That is all to the good. I am glad there will be driving tests. Although the figures may be in favour of what was called amateur driving this evening, it is rather frightening for ordinary drivers and ordinary people to see and to know some things that are happening. Take a new driver of maybe six months' standing. It could be that that driver's car could not be put into one of the best car parks I know because the driver would not be able to drive the car out of the park.

Many people pull up without considering the safety of anybody. They will pull up where they want to stop; it does not matter whether or not it is a traffic hazard. They would not go maybe 25 yards further on to a safe place and park and walk back. I am in favour of having fines on the spot tried out. I am in favour of the Minister being tough in this regard. I do not know how a lot of the members of my Party regard this but I am in favour of the toughness in this matter. If it is not a success and leads to abuses that have been mentioned here the Minister will know what to do about it. If he brings in a short Bill to take away the power, this House will not be long about passing it.

Deputy de Valera said some very bad cases went into the courts. Deputy J.A. Costello said we should leave it to the district justices, judges and juries. With all respect to the district justices, judges and juries, I will say as an ordinary citizen that though there were some very bad cases there were some terribly bad decisions in courts all over the country. There seems to be a wave of sentiment all over the world when the most brutal murderer is captured and put on trial. There is a wave of sentiment for the murderer or the accused, as he would be called here. Nobody ever thinks of the poor devils who have been killed.

Debate adjourned.
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