Ever since I was a child of 10 or 11, I have held a deep interest in transport safety. At that age I was lucky enough to win a prize at school for passing my Cycling Proficiency Test. The prize was a trip up to London to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) HQ, which ignited a long-term passion for me on the subject.
Fast forward some years to my early career as a university lecturer at Swansea University. My wife and I had a young family, and one weekend we were driving back from my younger daughter, Madlin’s, christening at St Mary’s Church in Sunbury-on-Thames. I was driving, my wife Pam was in the back with Lucy, who was 3 or 4 at the time, and Madlin was in her cot in the front passenger seat, with the seatbelt wrapped around the cot, something of course, I wouldn’t dream of doing today. We were in South Wales, on the A4 heading towards Newport when our Vauxhall Cresta, which was fortunately an extremely large and heavy car, was crashed into by another car, causing both cars to leave the road. When we came to a stop, I could see that the other driver wasn’t injured, our baby, Madlin, was fine, as was Lucy, in the back seat, but Pam, was unconscious, as she’d hit her head on the internal light of the car. An ambulance took us to the nearest hospital where my wife soon recovered, and the children were fine, but I have never forgotten how lucky we were to be wearing seatbelts. Just before the accident, Pam had taken Lucy out of her harness, to use the toilet in the car, so I was very aware that the crash could have had far worse consequences if she hadn’t put the harness back on in time.
From this point on my interest in road safety turned into a passion to bring about positive change. I became more attuned to other accidents that I witnessed whilst driving, such as a young couple laying badly injured by the side of the road having been thrown out of their car. When I became a Member of Parliament some years later, I became aware of the fact that children were allowed to be carried in cars without restraint, leaving them very vulnerable. A casualty surgeon informed me around this time that until a certain age a child’s head is as fragile as an egg, and it became clear to me that the law wasn’t adequate to keep children safe whilst travelling in cars. So, I introduced a Private Members’ Bill, and it was the first, and only, time I came so high in the ballot, in the top 10. With this came a great deal of interest. Many people got in touch, including my old friend Jean Gaffin, who had been at the London School of Economics with me and had gone on to become the Chief Executive of the Child Safety Trust. Of course, she echoed my concerns that children could travel in a vehicle without a seatbelt lawfully and wanted to use my Bill to introduce a law that would require every child to wear a seatbelt when travelling in a vehicle. I got the Public Bill Office working on it and we came up with, what we thought was, a good and credible piece of legislation. Unfortunately, at this time, there was a very hostile atmosphere to seatbelt regulation in the Houses of Parliament. There had been 13 attempts to introduce compulsory seatbelt wearing and each time it was defeated. This Bill, designed to protect children, was looking like an uphill journey. However, with all the campaigning I’d done over the years, I knew that persistence was key and strong partnerships vital. So, we built a strong campaign both inside and outside of Parliament.
At that time, both Margaret Thatcher and Michael Foot were opposed to adult seatbelts, as well as many senior Members of Parliament. However, there was less hostility to a Bill that would protect children, and as I introduced the Bill on a Friday morning, I thought things were going quite well. Sadly, I was too optimistic! A Conservative Member of Parliament, for one of the Buckingham seats, who was ideologically very much opposed to what he regarded as unnecessary red tape and regulation, shouted “object” to my Bill, which of course, meant that the Bill was lost. I was very angry in the Members’ Lobby afterwards, confronting him with the words “you do realise that because of your actions today, many children may well die?”
A glimmer of hope came in the form of the 1981 Transport Act, which was, at that time, going through both houses. Norman Fowler was then Secretary of State and Ken Clarke was his young junior minister, who dealt with road safety. Ken Clarke alerted me to the fact that the Government was minded to accept my Bill if I amended the legislation as it went through the committee stage, and of course I was happy to do so.
However, with adult seatbelts we campaigned very vigorously and managed to get a reasonable amount of support in the House of Lords, in particular from Lord Howell of Guildford who having previously been a Junior Transport Minister under Margaret Thatcher was very active in transport safety.
In addition to this we had a young American intern at the time, who did a marvellous job of ringing up anyone who had a contact in the House of Lords, on medicine, health, or safety, and asking them to be supportive of an amendment in the House of Lords on the Bill. The amendment was passed in the Lords. However, we had to get the support of the House of Commons on the Lords’ Amendment, right at the end of the Bill’s journey through Parliament.
As luck would have it, the chosen day for this Bill to come back to the House of Commons for a vote was the Friday of the royal wedding between Charles and Diana. We tried to not make much of a show about it, but quietly begged people to stay around to vote. Many MPs were inclined to get away early as it was a bank holiday on the Monday, so quite a substantial number of Members weren’t around to vote one way or the other. We had organised well and conducted a vigorous debate.
However, there were still dissenters, such as Professor John Adams from UCL London, who believed that if people felt safer in a car, due to wearing their seatbelt, they would be more likely to speed and generally drive more dangerously, leading to more accidents. His theory was known as ‘risk compensation theory’, however, fortunately for us, there was little evidence to support this theory. In our camp we had a wonderful coalition of casualty surgeons, one or two motoring organisations, some of the police forces, road safety experts, academics, and some solid support from children’s charities – a formidable group, with their MPs campaigning across the country. In short, we had a winning campaign!
But what really clinched it was the fact that on the day of the vote they didn’t keep their people in the House of Commons, and we did. And so, we achieved a majority in the House of Commons for compulsory seatbelt wearing. That night after the vote, we went on top of the roof of the Houses of Parliament (which we can’t do now) to celebrate with a glass of wine and a wonderful fireworks display in honour of Charles and Diana. The fireworks felt very fitting for all involved in changing the law on seatbelts.
After the law came in, all the records showed that injuries and deaths due to serious accidents declined sharply. It remains one of my proudest achievements in my career as an MP and led to the inception of The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) in 1982.
If you’re interested in learning more about this vital legislation, the following podcast unites three people involved in the original campaign.
“We are proud to have saved so many lives with the work we did” (roadsafetygb.org.uk)