Leslie Hore-Belisha
Isaac Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha PC (7 September 1893 – 16 February 1957) was a British Liberal, then National Liberal Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister. He later joined the Conservative Party. He is remembered for his innovations in road transport and for being an alleged victim of anti-semitism.
Hore-Belisha was appointed Minister of Transport in 1934 coming to public prominence at a time when motoring was becoming available to the masses. All speed limits for motor cars had controversially been removed by the Road Traffic Act 1930 during the previous (Labour) administration. 1934 was to see record road casualties with (7,343 deaths and 231,603 injuries) being recorded, with half of the casualties being pedestrians and three-quarters occurring in built-up areas. Hore-Belisha described this as 'mass murder'
Shortly after being appointed he was crossing Camden High Street when a sports car shot along the street without stopping nearly causing him 'serious injury or worse' when he was involved in a public-relations exercise to demonstrate how to use of the new ‘uncontrolled crossings’.
The Road Traffic Act 1934 re-introduced speed limits for motor cars of a 30 mph limit in built-up areas. This was vigorously opposed by many who saw the new regulations as a removal of 'An Englishman's freedom of the highway'. The earlier 20 mph speed limit had abolished in 1930 because it was universally flouted and an large backlog of court cases had made the law unenforceable; in addition the Automobile Association (AA) and the Royal Automobile Club (RAC), were frequently successful in defending their members against evidence from primitive speed traps.
He rewrote the Highway Code and was responsible for the introduction of two innovations which led to a dramatic drop in road accidents: the driving test and the Belisha Beacon, named after him by the public.
See Also
Sources of Information
- [1] Wikipedia