The Battle for the Roads of Britain

The Battle for the Roads of Britain Police, Motorists and the Law, c.1890s to 1970s Keith Laybourn with David Taylor TheBattlefortheRoadsofBritain This page intentionally left blank The Battle for the Roads of Britain Police, Motorists and the Law, c.1890s to 1970s Keith Laybourn Diamond Jubilee Professor, University of Huddersfield, UK with David Taylor Emeritus Professor in History, University of Huddersfield, UK Palgrave macmillan © Keith Laybourn and David Taylor 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-0-230-35932-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-57413-1 ISBN 978-1-137-31785-8 ()eBook DOI 10.1057/9781137317858 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. To Julia and Thelma This page intentionally left blank Contents ListofTables viii Preface ix Acknowledgements x List of Abbreviations xii 1 The Challenge of Automobility and the Response of Policing in Britain: An Overview of a New Vista 1 2 Historiography and Argument 25 Part I Policing Britain c.1900–1970: Enforcing the Law on the Motorist 3 ‘An Unwanted but Necessary Task’: Traffic Policing and the Enforcement of the Law, c.1900–1939 45 4 Policing the New Age of Mass Motoring c.1940s–1970: Motor Patrolling, to Q Cars, Z Cars and Unit Beat Policing 86 Part II Engineering, Educating and Channelling Road Safety 5 Engineering the Environment c.1900–1970: Congestion, Meters and Redefining the Urban Landscape 129 6 Traffic Accidents and Road Safety: The Education of the Pedestrian and the Child, 1900–1970 149 Conclusion 186 Appendices 190 Notes 195 Bibliography 224 Index 230 vii Tables 1.1 Motor vehicles in use in Britain, 1919–1966 (000s) 2 1.2 Deaths and injuries on Britain’s roads, 1919–2012 3 3.1 Selected offences (per million of population) 55 3.2 Home Office Experimental Motor Patrol Scheme, 1938–1939 56 3.3 Persons killed and injured in the Lancashire County Police District, April to March 1937/8 and 1938/9 72 3.4 Accidents to children in the Lancashire County Police District, April to March 1937/8 and 1938/9 72 3.5 Casualties (deaths and injuries) per 1,000 of the population in the Lancashire County Police District, 1932–1938/9 73 3.6 Road users killed or injured in the area covered by Lancashire County Police 73 3.7 Serious motoring offences, 1931–1938 76 4.1 Traffic wardens in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Police District, 1962–1965 95 4.2 Fixed penalty notice fines issued by the Metropolitan Police in 1963 and 1964 95 4.3 The additional traffic wardens projection in the Working Party Report on Traffic Wardens 96 4.4 Arrests with the Q-car system, 1958 and 1960 104 4.5 The enforcement of traffic law offences relating to motor vehicles, 1961–1963 116 4.6 Drink driving statistics for England, Scotland and Wales, 1966–2011 123 5.1 Traffic growth, 1962–1980 141 6.1 Road accidents in the 1920s 153 6.2 Traffic deaths in London, 1922–1929 154 6.3 Road deaths, 1938–1946 167 6.4 Road accidents and deaths of under-5s 172 viii Preface The advent of the automobile exerted revolutionary change on British society in the twentieth century, and this book examines this in relation to Britain’s roads between 1900 and 1970. There are two central debates that drive this book. The first is concerned with the declining democracy of the road in the face of ‘the new form of express train’, the automobile. The second debate, and the central focus of this book, is the role of the police in controlling the road. This book suggests that the democracy of the road was bound to decline, as the motor car drove the pedestrian, and other road users, off the road – for motorised vehicles were indomitable and unforgiving killing machines and this implied necessary segregation. As for the precise role of the police in this process, and the extent to which they were complicit in the rise of the motorists, this book suggests that they sought to act in an impartial manner in enforcing the law, although they were not always helped by the magis- tracy and the courts, and that they were not the partial servants of the motorists. They adopted a three-part strategy: the three Es of Enforce- ment, Engineering and Education. In the first of these, their essential sphere of influence, the police acted as arbitrators of the road and sought to enforce the law of the land, despite the opposition of motoring lob- bies and the failures of the courts. They thus performed in the style of Gatrell’s concept of the ‘policeman state’ – the notion that the police have always sought to apply the law impartially. In the case of the Engineering and Education, their influence was much more marginal, for they were dependent on local authorities and planning authorities for the first of these, and influenced greatly by voluntary organisations such as the National ‘Safety First’ Association (NSFA)/Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) with regard to the second. Indeed, in Education, their work was very much focused on dealing with the pedestrian and the child. In the end, though, police sought to be even-handed, with Enforcement largely composed of the rules of the road applied to motorists, and Engineering and Education more geared towards saving the lives of pedestrians. The strategy worked and the road holocaust was finally defeated. However, this was achieved through the necessary restructuring of British policing and the segregation of the pedestrian. ix Acknowledgements Any academic publication owes a great debt to the generosity of others, and this is no exception. The University of Huddersfield has enabled me to gather together the government and police records, and in this respect I must thank Dr Neil Pye, who digitised many sets of annual reports that are used in this collection. In addition, I must thank my colleagues, and ex- colleagues, including Sarah Bastow, Barry Doyle, Richard Morris, John Shepherd and Paul Ward, who have all supported my efforts. Most particularly, I must thank Professor David Taylor, a treasured friend and an ex-colleague with whom I was going to write this book. Snowed under with other work, he had to make a late withdrawal from the project, but nevertheless found the time to read the manuscript and to make con- structive suggestions for changes. Since some of the work included is his research he has agreed that the book should be published as authored by Keith Laybourn with David Taylor. I owe a particular gratitude to the various archivists and librarians who have provided me with help in my research. Duncan Broady, Museum Curator of the Greater Manchester Police Museum and Archives, has, with his immense knowledge of police history, been particularly helpful. I would also like to thank the staff of the Archives, Heritage and Pho- tography Service, Library of Birmingham, the Lancashire Record Office (particularly Bruce Jackson and David Tilsey), the Liverpool Record Office and the West Yorkshire Archive Service, Wakefield. The majority of the primary material was drawn from The National Archives at Kew, which gave me permission to draw on their document collection. In addition, I would like to thank the Controller of Her Majesty’s Sta- tionary Office (Norwich) for permission to quote from Crown copyright material. Judy Nokes was responsible for arranging this under the Open Government Licence, and also arranged permission for the use of the National Archives collections. The vast majority of this book is drawn from the primary evidence gathered in the above-mentioned archives. However, in providing the historiography of debate, I have referred to the vital secondary literature that has shaped my thinking. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to avoid infringement of copyright. However, I apologise unreservedly x Acknowledgements xi to any copyright holders whose permission I have inadvertently over- looked. My thanks also go to Jade Moulds and the Palgrave Macmillan edi- torial team for their help and guidance in preparing this book, and to Jenny McCall, Global Head of History and Philosophy, Palgrave Macmillan.

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