Road Safety Bill (HL)

The Bill contains 48 clauses and five schedules and makes provision for a range of road safety matters designed to help achieve the Governments road casualty reduction targets.

It includes measures relating to: drink-driving and speeding offences, penalties and enforcement matters, driver fatigue, driving standards, driver and vehicle licensing, and road safety grants to local authorities for road safety projects. Specific proposals include: i) the introduction of a broader and more flexible range of fixed penalties for speeding to take account of severity of offence and an increased range of penalty points available for road traffic offences such as lack of vehicle roadworthiness, driving whilst using a handheld mobile telephone, or careless driving; ii) a greater regulation of car driving instructors, allowing public access to information about the performance of individual instructors, their qualifications and services; iii) to require the worst drink-drive offenders to re-take the driving test; iv) to amend the current drink drive rehabilitation scheme to improve take-up and introduce an experimental scheme for alcohol ignition interlocks; v) to close the loophole which lets offenders at the highest risk of re-offending drive pending medical inquiries; and vi) to improve the enforcement of road traffic laws through changes to drive and vehicle licensing arrangements.