Speed Limit Policy Review - Jersey Chamber of Commerce - Transcript - 11 March 2011

STATES OF JERSEY

Environment Scrutiny Panel Speed Limit Policy Review

FRIDAY, 11th MARCH 2011

Panel:

Deputy P.J. Rondel of St. John (Chairman) Deputy D.J.A. Wimberley of St. Mary Senator A. Breckon

Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade

Witnesses:

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce

Also Present: Scrutiny Officer

[9:31]

Deputy P.J. Rondel of St. John (Chairman):

Good morning, gentlemen.

You have asked to give us representation on the Speed Limits Review. Could you give us the information you would like to give us please?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Yes. What provoked this, Mr. Chairman, was, in the letter we received, there is a comment on page 2 I think about halfway down that refers to speed limits, or the breaking of speed limits, by commercial vehicles or commercial operations, where it refers to there is a lot of speeding offences that go unchallenged by private cars, and therefore there is an assertion made that there is also a similar type of thing, type of incidents, that occur in the commercial vehicle sector. Really, the point of coming to see you is really to say: "What is the basis of this? Is it just purely anecdotal? Is there evidence to it?" Because we have made obviously some inquiries around our member firms and this is not seen as an issue at all on commercial vehicles. But, if you do have anecdotal evidence or any evidence of any sort, this is what we would like, we would like to hear this.

The Deputy of St. John :

You will find that that in fact I will ask my officer to explain, because he knows exactly what that was about.

Scrutiny Officer:

Yes, I can do, and in fact I did communicate with your office just the other day when I heard that was one of the questions that you were interested in. The statement was included in the Chairman's letter just as part of the general background to inform possible stakeholders of what considerations might be in the department's mind, but it arose in research from the previous Speed Limits Review carried out by the department in 2004, and in fact there is a paragraph about speed limits for heavy vehicles in that particular report, which simply states that speed limits are poorly observed by heavy goods vehicles. Evidence for that given in the report, in the paragraph it is stated that a large number of the complaints that the department received, presumably at that time, were about perceptions of speeding by heavy vehicles. There was no great detail in the paragraph, but clearly the department at that time felt that there was a case. It is not something that the Panel has investigated because of course, as I tried to explain in my communication with your office, there is no proposal to change the speed limit for heavy goods vehicles in this proposition,

and so it is not something that the Panel has focused on or is really seeking more evidence on at this stage.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Really from our point of view it was that the reputable companies that operate on P30 permits have a 30 mile an hour limit, these companies have procedures in place, drivers' hours, how they drive, and we just have not come across anything coming back across Gordon's committee as well that says that there is an issue there, and in a way, putting my hand up, we really want to speak up for our members and say: "Okay, if it is an issue, let us hear about it and obviously we will do our best to address it and speak to those companies concerned. I mean what we have to do is perhaps have, and please do not take this the wrong way, we have to have a sort of perhaps a division between the local haulage companies, who deliver a lot of the goods on the Island, and those companies obviously that are doing haulage for their own goods, for the department stores and this sort of thing, and also what I can describe as, but not deprecatingly, let us put it like that, is white van man, and I do not want to attack the white van man business because if Jersey is going to get out of its economic trials it is white van man who is going to generate that, and that I think is the same on the mainland as well and I think that is very important, so we must not knock them, but on the other hand, maybe because of the very nature of what they do and everything like this, perhaps they are maybe not policed as well as perhaps should be the case, rushing from job to job, trying to get paid for everything that they do, but that is what I feel is going to ... sorry if I am going slightly off the track here, but it is that area of small business that is really going to help to speed up Jersey's economy, and that is very important, so we must not criticise them, but I think that you have to draw that distinction between the regular haulage companies and the smaller businesses; let us put it like that.

Senator A. Breckon:

Can I just quote from the working party that was set up, received a submission from the States of Jersey Police on 7th August 2009 and they had done some monitoring in different areas, there was a 5-day period ...

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Sorry, Senator, did you say 79?

Senator A. Breckon:

7th August 2009, Rue de la Cote, 5 days, and what they say is there was a daily average of 1,060 drivers speeding at 36 mile or more and 270 drivers were recorded speeding at 46 mile or more over a 5-day period. Rue de Saint-Aubin, 16-day period, a daily average of 1,755 drivers speeding at 36 mile an hour or more and over 1,300 drivers were recorded speeding at more than 46 miles an hour over a 16-day period. Route de la Haule, 18-day period, a daily average of 1,570 speeding at more than 36 miles an hour, and over 800 drivers were recorded speeding at more than 46 miles an hour over that 18-day period. Their estimates are that there are 166,000 vehicle journeys are made each day in Jersey, and aggregating these figures they suggest that 10s of thousands of speeding offences are committed each day in Jersey, and I put that question to you, can you tell me that none of those are commercial vehicles?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

No, of course not, but what we are talking about there is this seems to me, if I have this right, this is really based on private cars rather than ... nobody has split the difference to commercial vehicles, and you talk about Route de la Haule, well sometimes you go down there, you are lucky if you can do one mile an hour, let alone 36, so I think that things ... sorry, I come back to actually it is ... I do not want to sound like a lawyer, but evidence, and evidence that is required if there is an issue, because, as we said, we will certainly address this issue among our members and take it up if it is that, but I mean we have spoken to our member companies who are involved in distribution, and obviously that is an important part of our Chamber membership, and membership of the Transport Committee, and we are not going getting ... very few of them seem to have had speeding tickets and as far as they are concerned it is not an issue, but if it is an issue we would like to address it.

Senator A. Breckon:

To put that in perspective, the police in effect cannot police that, because they would have to be up all the time, doing the things and generating the paperwork, and if you look at the offences that go through court, as well as what ... well not the ones that are dealt with at the Parish Hall , there are about 830 a year, so if you are going to work up zero tolerance and you have a real issue, they are not saying that, the police, there is a margin of speedo, circumstances, and obviously, if it was wet or icy then a higher speed is dangerous anyway than the limit, so they do apply commonsense.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Yes, most commercial vehicle drivers are skilled drivers, they have to be to drive the sort of equipment that they drive as part of their job, so therefore in the conditions I would have thought that they would drive within the conditions, the weather, the road, even the time of day, whether you are you are in busy traffic or not busy traffic.

The Deputy of St. John :

Deputy Power joined the Panel at 9.38 a.m. ... this is for the record. Continue please, Deputy .

The Deputy of St. Mary :

P30s, do they have speed controllers at all, just as a matter of fact, or do some or do ...

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Well, no, but I have always understood that the 30 is the 30 mile an hour maximum speed limit for those vehicles that have a P30 plate. Am I right there?

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: That is right, they drive to a maximum limit of 30 miles an hour.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

I was just wondering whether there was a technical wheeze that could enforce the 30 without having to rely on people doing what is right.

Deputy S. Power:

My understanding is that they are not governed.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Governed, that is the word.

Senator A. Breckon:

They do not carry a tachograph?

Deputy S. Power:

They do. Some of them are factory fitted, are they not?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Some of them do, but they are not in use.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: They are not in use over here, the vehicles that are bought will often ... new commercial vehicles and lorries will have tachographs in them, but they are not used over here because the laws and the operating licences are obviously quite different here than they are on the mainland where the vehicles have come from.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Same question, more important really, I just wondered what your comments would be if I put it to you that, if, for example, you had a 30 mile an hour zone going through a village, and you get this comment ... I get this comment as a Deputy : "Ah, but they are going so fast", and what they are talking about is heavy goods vehicles, who may very well be doing within the speed limit, they may be doing 27, 28, they usually are, but the perception is totally different from a car going past at 27 or 28, and I just wondered whether you would like to comment on that, because you were saying: "We stay within the 30, therefore it is all right", but from the point of view of other stakeholders that might still be too fast.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

But we have already mentioned on the perception issue, but it is really the drivers would be driving according to the road, or should be driving according to the road conditions and where they are in the built-up area, in the country districts, in the villages, and we would expect our member companies to use their commonsense, because that is basically what it boils down to, within the speed limit, to be aware of everything that is going on around them and not go hurtling through ... I am not saying anybody does, but if there is a perception that people hurtle through villages, then I do not know of that, but, if there is that perception, let us address it with telling people to be a bit more mindful of where they are driving. It is really down to road conditions.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Yes, it would be good if people were mindful, but certainly ... I mean I have stood there to look at the traffic going past and I have no doubt that my parishioners are right that people are going through there mindful maybe of the limit, they are under the limit, but they are not mindful of what people might be feeling as they thunder past, and they are thundering because they are big, and it is a narrow road going through St. Mary . So you have these problems, and they do not slow down, they stay within the limit, but they do not slow down, definitely not. You can exhort or cajole all you like, but I just wondered what your view might be that the limit, if the limit was lower, then they would conform to the limit, and everyone would breathe easier and feel safer.

[9:45]

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Are you talking about all built-up areas?

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Well, I am talking about my own Parish specifically, but yes, it would apply to other villages too, where, if there is very narrow pavement, or no pavement at all, and you have this frontage on one side or both sides and you have vehicles going through and people walking along the edge to get to a shop or get to the school, there is a whole situation there, which seems to be not sorted, and I was just taking the opportunity to run that past you and see whether there would be a sort of positive response on that kind of issue.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Having just spent 3 days in Guernsey, I find it very ...

The Deputy of St. Mary : Where it is worse.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Well, yes, because buses and trucks and cars mount pavements, and as a dutiful driver I find it quite difficult to mount pavements anywhere, especially when you are trying to pass something, so we do not want that sort of situation over here at all. But really it comes back to what I was saying about you have well-trained commercial vehicle drivers who drive according to the conditions they encounter; that is really the important thing I would say.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

All right, we will park it for another time.

The Deputy of St. John :

How will you ... one of the proposals of the proposed law by T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services) are proposing putting a 30 mile an hour speed limit on 175 miles of Island roads. What are the views of your members at such a large number of roads being reduced to 30 miles an hour?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Probably there are not that many places in Jersey where you can do quite safely 40 miles an hour anyway, apart from on the Avenue where you have the dual carriageway. On the smaller roads, we would have to accept that, if T.T.S. feel that those areas need a 30 mile an hour limit then a 30 mile an hour limit should be there and we would expect our members to observe the limits.

The Deputy of St. John :

Given the police have difficulty, and will have difficulty, policing it, do you have any concerns?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Again we come back to the companies that we represent are reputable companies, it is their livelihoods, I think the drivers are well informed by the management that: "Listen, guys, you have to do it properly, but if not you are going to run into difficulties", I think that the reputable companies will, as I said, obey the law, if that is what the law says, that is what will happen. I am pretty certain of that. In any event, many of the vehicles have P30 plates, so if you start getting too much of a problem with traffic, say: "Hang on, guys, your guys are not doing what you should be doing under the terms of your traffic permit so we will clamp down on you", and I think, running a business, all the economics of running a business, fuel prices and everything else, I think they have more to -- the problem of speeding is just one of the issues that any management company has to face, so therefore, if the law is such, they would want to obey the law.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I think a lot of it comes down to clarity of signage, there is a lot of confusion at the moment because there is a lot of signage that allegedly is not clear, and I think the minute we have total clarity of signage, people know which roads have 30 mile an hour speed limits, which roads are 40 miles an hour, which roads are 20 miles an hour, that will improve the whole situation.

Deputy S. Power:

Good morning, I apologise for being late. This is my third meeting this morning. I did warn the Chairman that I would be slightly late. Just picking up on your last point, the Chairman has referred to the fact that there is a proposal to have 175 miles of country roads and outside of town roads to be restricted to 30 miles an hour. How would you feel about having the countryside festooned in 30 mile an hour signs then, because every intersection would have to have a warning to say that the main road is a 30 mile an hour road?

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Would it have to be signage?

The Deputy of St. Mary : As the law stands.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Because green lanes have 15 miles an hour written on the road, do they not? I think that is quite effective. I am not saying that is the solution everywhere around the Island, but for green lanes it is good. I will get on to green lanes in a minute, if I may.

Deputy S. Power:

But if the Minister for Transport and Technical Services does get the Assembly to agree that you will have this 30 mile an hour limit on roads with these lines, obviously, in order to enforce it properly, you would have to have the signage, the roundels, the 30 mile an hour roundels everywhere, I mean how do you feel about that?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

If you are the manufacturer of the signs, it is good for business. [Laughter] But I just think that in something like that, the T.T.S. have to be quite sensible and sensitive as to where they put the signs so that the whole Island is not festooned in signs, we seem to have enough street signs of one thing, what is laughingly called street furniture, all over the place anyway at the moment, and it all gets a bit much, so I think a lot of it needs to rely on a lot of people's commonsense as well, one would like to think so, to enforce the law legally, but then perhaps the law should be changed so that you do not need to stick up signs everywhere.

Deputy S. Power:

The law as it stands, there is a tension between what T.T.S. would aspire to do and what the police can do. T.T.S. are proposing to make the 30 mile an hour limit without signage and the police are saying that they cannot enforce it without signage.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: All right. Perhaps signage should come second to safety.

Deputy S. Power:

Yes, good point. Can I get back to the question about heavy goods vehicles in general, and the Deputy of St. Mary did make the point that there is a perception, and it is a perception problem, that large vehicles are perceived to be speeders all the time, and the big fleets that  are  easily identified, say  Ronez, Normans, Condor, Ferry Speed, Huelin Renouf , I have done a phone poll this week and the instances of road traffic collisions, prosecutions to these drivers, is virtually nil.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: That is our evidence as well, yes.

Deputy S. Power:

The perception therefore is that commercial vehicle fleet operators have rogue drivers, and I would say that does not really apply ... I am asking you whether you agree with this, but that may not apply to the very large heavy vehicles, but it does apply more to what I would call the white van man, which is the van that is up to and including 5 or 6 tonnes in weight or maybe a large Transit, Volkswagen, whatever, and those are the ones that are unmarked sometimes, they are plain white vans, plain red vans, they are the ones that cause the problems, would you agree that may be the problem, that commercial vehicles, not the large Ronez type truck or the Condor truck are not the problem, but it is the white van trundling through St. Mary ...

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

That was sort of the point that I made earlier that commercial operators do abide by the law with P30 plates and everything like this and they need to, and the drivers are trained and they have to take account of the road conditions when they are driving, basically if you are hauling a 20-tonne container you have to have a pretty good idea of what is going on. It is white van man perhaps that could be seen as part of the problem, but then I would say you have to make the distinction, as you have done, between the commercial companies and white van man, but not to have too much of a go at white van man because, as I mentioned earlier, he is driving the ... very important to be driving the economy anyway. But, even so, those vehicles should have the plates for most traffic, so therefore there is a form of control that the vehicles are ... I do not know how often you have to change the plates on the side, I do not know how often you have to change them, but they must be inspected by motor traffic before they stick the plate on the side of the vehicle anyway. I have seen this obviously on ...

The Deputy of St. Mary :

What kind of plate is that, sorry, because that is not a P30?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

No, it is not a P30 plate, but there is a plate that gives the unladen weight and the legal laden weight as well, date of manufacture, which I assume motor traffic must have done a check on the vehicle before ...

The Deputy of St. John :

I think that is purely above 8.5 tonnes, is it not?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I have seen it on smaller vehicles; I might be wrong there, I am not 100 per cent certain. But I make the distinction between the commercial companies and, as I call them, not disparagingly, white van man.

The Deputy of St. John :

Your white van man, surely quite a number of those will belong to your members?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Yes, but then they would be under the same conditions, as driven, the same type of thing as the large commercial vehicles as well.

The Deputy of St. John :

Because I can understand you have clientele, like Condor and the likes, which would be members of your association, but you would also have groups of much smaller vehicles, I do not know, the Post Office for instance, where you would have a lot of very small vehicles, which are permitted to do 40 miles an hour, and I was just wondering if, by reducing the speed limits to 30 miles an hour, if you add the green lanes into it, which they are proposing to raise it in that area, it brings up something like 230 miles of Island roads, which are going to be affected.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Organisations like the Post Office I am sure operate the same type of sensible control over their drivers as well. The Post Office, even though obviously they are delivering a lot in the smaller vehicles in country areas, the postmen there are pretty well familiar with where they are going and what they are doing and I am sure that ... I am pretty certain that they will be ones, from Post Office management, would be imposing on them restrictions and not to drive too fast and not to break the law obviously.

The Deputy of St. John :

But, do any of your members do the time and motion studies, i.e. for delivering of goods, given the cost of everything these days.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Jersey Post do. Jersey Post certainly do.

The Deputy of St. John :

Therefore it would impact on some of your members' businesses.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Yes, that is possible, yes, if you are reducing the limit, but then that is a cost of doing business in the Island, you have to have safe roads, and if it means that you cannot travel more than 30 then you cannot travel more than 30, it may take you longer to do your deliveries, but then, if there is an issue there, there is a cost to that, and that is something that has to be borne in mind when changes are made to the law.

Deputy S. Power:

You may talk about, we have to have safe roads, do you consider our roads are not safe the way they are currently operating?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I think, if you have drivers who are trained properly, I do not think that is an issue, because then the drivers take care and consideration of the road conditions and of the size of the road and where they are driving, and I think that is very important, and that is part of training that the larger organisations, with the vehicle fleets, and I include the Post Office there, I am sure have with their drivers.

Deputy S. Power:

One question, and I want to ask your opinion, would you not agree that the driving demands on a small Island like this, where you have a mixture of intense stop and drive conditions in St. Helier and very narrow roads on the Island, that it demands a certain set of skills, similar to inner-city London, and those skills are completely different to motorway driving or whatever, and that those particular skills and the employees that your members represent are demanding, would you not agree that the standard of commercial driving per se on the Island is fairly high?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I would say so, yes, because there are ... it comes back to the evidence base, is this a serious problem for commercial vehicles, because when these guys are out on the road, they have gone for an hour or 2 doing deliveries, so when the foreman comes back and says: "God, you have been a long time", and he says: "Well I have been stuck in the traffic here, I have been stuck there, we cannot get a load inbound to St. Helier to unload", and this sort of thing, so that is all part of the management of the distribution business.

Deputy S. Power:

How often in the recent past has speeding or speed limits or road conditions come up as an agenda item within the Chamber of Commerce transport sub-group?

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: It has not in the last year or 2.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Following on from that ... no, you say what you were going to say.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

No, I was just going to say that I do not think we are suggesting or we feel in any way that the Island roads are unsafe. I think the subject of training is the crux of the matter, up to each individual company to train their drivers and make them aware of what Deputy Power was just saying, one has to be skilled, and ... did I see a proposal that the ring road should be reduced to 20 miles an hour?

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Not the ring road, no, all the roads within the ring road.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

That is within town; that is probably just accepting reality, you are quite lucky if you can go above 20 in town anyway.

Deputy S. Power:

One final question, Chairman, my question on road conditions was not related to safety, it was related to road construction and repair, and disruption. Did that ever come up on the agenda where the transport feel that undue delays are caused by road repairs, road construction, road digging, whatever?

[10:00]

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: No, not in the last few years.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

The thing that does come up is the state of the roads, which is more not a formal item on the agenda, but it is talked about, the state of the roads where everything gets dug up, outside my office, down on the Esplanade, they seem to have been doing that for weeks and weeks and weeks, digging it up, putting it down again, digging it up again, that causes congestion, and that is a slightly different issue of whether all the utilities ... I know some of them, they have all come together, and the J.E.C. (Jersey Electricity Company) went around and dug it all up again. It is those sort of thing that cause more congestion and perhaps get drivers a bit ... not quite road rage, but you get a little bit ... you are sitting in the traffic and you are not moving anywhere and this sort of thing, and then on some of the major roads as well there are sort of various ... I know it is after we had a very severe winter, so therefore these things have to be done, but there seemed to be, in a number of cases, the road repairs have not been done at all, or they have been just patched up. Now I know there is a question of money and this sort of thing, but there are ... that is priorities that T.T.S. need to address. But I would say some of the roads are in pretty poor condition, I have noticed that driving myself, you are bumping up and down and things like this, which is ... especially at Mont Millais and along the front ... by the schools there when I go home, that is a bit bumpy; that is just one area that I am used to anyway.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Just a couple of questions, were you aware as the Chamber, formally aware of these proposals and the extent of them, the 170 miles ...

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

When we had the letter and when we started investigating it, we have been looking at this for the past few weeks.

The Deputy of St. Mary : The letter from us?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

But not from T.T.S. who were working on this in 2009?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Put me right, but I had not seen anything that has come formally through the Chamber office at all from T.T.S., nothing at all.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

That is one question. The other is, going back to the statement you made some time ago, there are not many places where you can do 40 miles an hour safely, like in the countryside, as a general comment, and I would agree with that, but would you draw a distinction between the roads ... because there is an issue, is there not, of vans getting to where they are going and plumbers or whoever trying to get to jobs, would you not draw a distinction between roads that are quite wide and where you, doing a delivery or whatever, would aim for, you would choose to go down those roads, and roads that are very narrow: "No, thank you, we will only go there if Mrs. Whatsit lives on that road." Would you draw a distinction between those 2 kinds of road?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Then it is whoever is making out in the company the distribution list for the drivers, they would say: "That is a narrow road so we can only put a Transit down there, we cannot put a 10-tonne lorry down there", I mean that is just a question of ... that in a way is the skill and local knowledge of whoever is doing the planning for where the delivery is going. You know you cannot send a container lorry unless you really have to ...

The Deputy of St. Mary :

I was not thinking of the size of the vehicle, I was thinking of the routing that you, say, if you go down that one, you will be fine, as opposed to if you go down that one, so stick to that one until the last bit.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I think that is the sort of experience that somebody who is organising that in the traffic office, the foreman, has up here, knows where to go and the drivers also, because a lot of them have been doing this for a while, say: "No, no, if we go this way around we will stick at it, and then we just go down the minor road when we have to, to make the delivery", and I am sure that is an element that goes around in the journey planning, that you stick to the main roads where you can drive quicker, but within the speed limit, if you see what I mean, and then you obviously have to turn off sometimes to where your end delivery point is.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

But even off the main road, because the main road is pretty skeletal, is it not, and then you go into the country roads, there is still a distinction to be made between ... I can think off the top of my head of roads where you can still do your nearly 40 and still be safe, and roads where you cannot possibly do even 30.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

But then you come down to the commonsense of the driver and the driver's local knowledge of the Island, and, as I said, many of these guys have been doing it for years and they know their way around and I know this from years ago when I was involved in distribution, you say: "Why do you not go this way?" "You got the business; I will deliver it." That is the way you are dealing with people who have been doing this for a long time and they know where they are going.

The Deputy of St. John :

Can we move on to green lanes?

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

We in the Chamber feel very strongly that the 15 mile an hour speed limit should be retained. An enormous amount ... from the tourism point of view firstly, an enormous amount of money has been invested over the last few years by the Tourism Development Fund in particular, I think it is over £1 million, in promoting the green lanes in the U.K. (United Kingdom) and Europe, particularly in Europe, Europeans coming to Jersey find it unique and very attractive that they can either walk or cycle along an area of road where there is very little traffic and, if there is traffic, it is restricted to 15 miles an hour. There is a great worry that, should it be increased to 20 miles an hour, car users will see the green lanes as a means of taking a short cut, traffic volumes will increase, and we were wondering firstly what sort of impact assessment, traffic volume assessment, has been done to warrant the speed limit being increased from 15 to 20 miles an hour. Certainly from the tourism point of view it would be highly damaging at a time when year-on-year tourism figures are falling. It is a unique selling point, combined with the Island Plan strategy to develop cycle routes, and the investment that has already been done in cycle routes, it makes no sense, it goes totally against everything that has been going on for the last few years.

The Deputy of St. John :

Do you think over ... well since roughly 20 years not, 15 years that green lanes have been in place, that they appear to have been forgotten about, not by tourism, but by the industry not having asked the Connétable s in the various Parishes to improve the various green lanes, in fact they should all meet up, Parish to Parish, they should be, shall we say, put gateways at the end of these various green lanes, so people can identify them as such, do you think that investment should have happened, or are you quite happy that they have just been evolving as they have, particularly 15 years ago, for the first 5 years, and then nothing seems to have happened. Do you think that the industry themselves should have been more active in wanting to keep them?

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Perhaps, but the awareness of green lanes has definitely evolved, particularly in the last few years, particularly in line with health improvements and people being conscious of walking and taking exercise, people are becoming more and more conscious. Certainly any improvements that can be made would be welcome and you are probably right, more effort could possibly have been made in that direction.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

But we do not want any more signs, so maybe on the roads, the 15 in the circle is perhaps a better bet. Then, sorry, harking back to Guernsey, having become lost in Guernsey, a set of diversions, over the past couple of days, a number of the roads there, they do not have the road signs, but what they have is a circle, 25 or 15, in where you end up in the country areas, and I think that is quite a good idea, on the road rather than a surfeit of road signs everywhere.

The Deputy of St. John :

Currently those are illegal, they do not mean anything here.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Then maybe that is perhaps where T.T.S. need to look at changing the law a bit, because really too many signs just gets out of order a bit.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I think the other point to be made with green lanes is, if you were to increase from 15 to 20 miles an hour, there would be a much greater need to police them. I am not sure how well policed they are at the moment, but, in line with traffic volumes increasing, if there were to be an increase in speed limit, the policing would have to increase and there would be a great cost to that. I am not quite sure how it would be done in fact.

The Deputy of St. John :

At the time of the review by the working party of the day, led by Connétable Butcher, were your group, the Chamber of Commerce, asked to give evidence on any part of the speed limits review?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

No, not that I am aware of at all, Deputy , so that is one of the reasons why I thought it would be a good idea to come and just we need to put our view across. I am not sure, from ... I have been President for 2 years and Vice-President for 2 years before that, I do not recall anything coming our way at all. I might be subject to ... I cannot remember anything, but it does not stand out that we have been approached at all.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

I am very sympathetic obviously to this plea for the green lanes and I totally understand the reasoning behind it. My problem, and our problem, and indeed T.T.S.'s problem, I think is to do with the enforceability of the 15 as a blanket limit, 15, statutory limit, roundel means that if you go at 16 you are breaking the law, and that means that virtually everybody in Jersey breaks the law when they drive in the green ... if they do drive in the green lanes, when they do drive in the green lanes, and that is a problem. It is a problem of ... I know the way people behave with speed limits is they do drive a tiny bit over, so 20 will mean 25, 15 means 20, but even that is itself a problem that T.T.S. have not addressed. But my question to you is, the strength of that argument is quite great in the States, little play that 15 is unenforceable and people do not drive at it anyway, it is difficult, when I keep to 15 I check that I am doing 15 and I can stop on a sixpence, I really could, and even at 20 I sort of could, and the issue is the speed you are doing when you get near the horse, when you come past the mum with the pushchair. So the issue is what speed you are doing when you are going around the blind corner, what speed you are doing when you pass the family walking down the lane or the group of over-50s on a walk or the horse rider. So is that not really the issue, rather than the blanket limit, if you could control that interaction, if you could get people to behave safely?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I think that is a question of how you drive in the road conditions. If you put up the limit to 20, you are raising the bar slightly, if you keep it at 15, people psychologically, will realise that I might be doing 17 or whatever, but I am not going to go much more than that, and therefore you expect ... it is really a question of how people drive and how people drive in ... it really comes down to how you drive in the road conditions that you encounter as you are driving, you have to be sensible on that.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Absolutely, and why should there be any difference to keep to 15 as opposed to 20. 20 is a bit faster, but you have a speedometer and you can keep to 15 if you are aware that it should be 15.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Surely the easiest way is to leave those routes, if you are going from A to B, leave those routes out of the equation.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: Yes, there are 2 or 3 arguments: (1) absolutely right, leave them out of the equation; (2) is there an argument to have no cars at all in the green lanes; and (3) to have cars in green lanes at a certain time of the day. I do not know; that is all very complicated and very difficult, but one has to look at all different possibilities.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

But one of the pleasures of living in Jersey, on nice Sunday afternoons, go out for a walk, my wife has a soft top, put the soft top down, wrap up warm, and drive around the green lanes and have a look. I mean we have 500-plus miles of roads there, I still come ... I mean I have lived here for 40 years now, I still come across roads that we have never driven down before, and that is really part of the quality of life and the enjoyment of living in Jersey.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I think we have to find out how much traffic use the green lanes, when they use them, the incident ... how many accidents in green lanes over the last 12 months, 24 months, that sort of thing has to be essential to find out, before thinking about increasing from 15 to 20 miles an hour.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

And near misses. I have been told about near misses, people have jumped into the hedge or been startled on a horse, and it could have been worse. I just want to put it to you, I make an observation first that you might know or not know that Tourism's Development Manager has been talking to T.T.S. on the sort of lines you are talking about, other ways of making the green lanes work. I just want to put it to you that maybe a speed limit is not the appropriate way, because 3 miles an hour in a narrow lane next to a horse might be appropriate, or even not moving at all, whereas 15 is too much. Do you see what I mean? It is about how you drive. How would you react to the idea that maybe we could change the liability around and then that would certainly create this effect of, if I am going from A to B I am not going down there because as soon as I go over that threshold then I am liable for any collision with anything or anybody.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Then you are really talking about private motorists now, and liabilities under insurance and this sort of thing, which is an area that we have not considered. I see what you mean, yes, you are going on to territory that needs, especially with insurance and this sort of thing, that needs really to be investigated on the whole legal aspect of this I think.

[10:15]

The Deputy of St. Mary :

I am just looking for ways around this and getting real safety.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I understand it, I see where you are coming from, but I think that is sort of somewhere in a way outside of what we do at Chamber, let us put it like this, but as Island residents I can see where you are coming from and I think one has to be a bit careful about not introducing too many more regulations and obviously insurance companies need to know, people are concerned at the higher cost of the motoring insurance in any event, as it is at the moment, and if you are going to put more liabilities there on people's insurance, we do not want to start driving up premiums as well.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

But there is also a cost of putting it from 15 to 20, you are going to lose the tourism and that is a big cost as well, get rid of all the signs ... treatment and then you know ...

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

It just relies on people's commonsense, I mean that is really what it should boil down to, people's commonsense and driving within the road conditions that they encounter.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

It is nice to have people's commonsense enforceable though, is it not?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

Very difficult to enforce; how do you enforce what is up here.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

No, that is the suggestion that I made, if there is a method.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

I think that is sort of a bit of a minefield, with the liability issue with insurance, I would say anyway.

The Deputy of St. John :

Do you believe that sufficient research has been done by Transport and Technical Services to have all these amendment, to alter the speed limits across the Island, in green lanes, on roads, et cetera, do you believe that sufficient work has been done before this gets debated in the States?

Deputy S. Power: Quite a leading question.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

We certainly feel a lot more work should be done before it is considered, particularly with ... I am concerned with green lanes, a lot more, so that proper decisions can be made.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

As I said earlier, we as the Chamber have not been consulted on this at all. We do not want to get burdened with too much in the way of consultation as well, but that is what we do, and we would speak to our membership using our online magazine and this sort of thing and say: "Well what is your view on this?" and maybe it is a question we could put up when we do our half-yearly business surveys: "What is the view of members on the speed limits" and this sort of thing, but we are going slightly out of the area of commerce that we cover, we could address that to our members who operate transport companies, but we have already talked about that, so you are getting into this slightly grey area as to what we do at Chamber and where we put our resources as well, because we spend a lot of time involved with Government on economic policy and all sorts, fiscal strategies and this sort of thing, rather than ... I see where you are coming on, on this issue, but it would not be somewhere that I would have thought that we would, apart from its effect on commercial vehicles and then on distribution and the possible effect on costs of distribution, it is not really one of our top areas of priority.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

What about the effect on tourism though as an industry?

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

We have many members in Chamber who have tourism-related activities, and just going back to the green lanes for final comment on them, I think the green lanes are different; you cannot categorise them in the same way as changing the speed limit within the ring road or elsewhere in the Island; the green lanes are unique, the whole concept of the green lanes would be lost, would change and be lost, if the speed limit went up from 15 to 20 miles an hour. It is not just tourists, it is Islanders at weekends or whenever.

The Deputy of St. John :

Anymore questions? Gentlemen, is there anything else you would like to tell us before I close the questions?

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce: I think we have covered everything.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

We just feel the reintroduction of police motorcycles would be very beneficial to response times for accidents and generally getting about the Island.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

The idea of having policemen and women on bicycles as well, so you can get to places that you cannot take a car or even a motorbike to, which I gather the new Police Chief has in mind as well.

Male Speaker:

Apparently he used to borrow a horse on a weekly basis in the city, from either the Grenadiers or somebody else, some other Regiment, and would patrol on horseback, but he is also a previous motorcycle police officer.

President, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

We have had a meeting with him at Chamber to discuss policing in general and this is one of the things that came up, motorcycles and cycles.

Chairman, Transport and Links Committee, Jersey Chamber of Commerce:

We also feel that these smiley/grumpy signs are pretty effective and the possibility of introducing more could be an answer. I do not know what research has been done to see how effective they are, but we feel they are effective.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

They certainly allow the Deputy of St. Mary to monitor the speed of traffic going through St. Mary , he stands next to it and watches and writes them down.

The Deputy of St. John :

Gentlemen, on behalf of the Panel I would like to thank you very much for attending and it has been very useful and our report hopefully will be out in several weeks' time and we will make sure you receive a copy. I declare this part of the meeting closed at 10.22 a.m. for the record.

[10:22]