HELP FOR HAULIERS.
Page 11
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
How the New Scheme of Arranging for Visits to Hauliers and of Advising and• Helping in the Solution of Their Problems, is Operating.
WHEN the Editor inserted that notice to the effect that my services were at the disposal of all and sundry, just for the asking, he ought to have added "and don't all speak at once." Now I can only regard it as extremely fortunate— for myself I—that I invariably spend Christmas rather more than 200 miles from London, and that I never make any arrangements for correspondence to be forwarded to me during the holiday period. Had that not been the case, I should surely have had to go without Christmas dinner. As it is, I have been able to do nothing since my return but deal with correspondence which has arisen, for, not only has that notice brought in quite a number of inquiries from Londoners who want me to pay them a personal visit, but it has involved a considerable increase in the number of letters which I habitually receive from provincial readers. In fact, my postage bag is now getting so big that I am compelled, like another contributor to this paper, to remind readers that a letter costs twopence nowadays, and to point nut to them that their chance of receiving a speedy reply to any inquiry is considerably enhanced by their enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for the purpose. Those who do so may rely on getting a reply in from two to three days, those who do not will only get a reply if it appears to me that their inquiry is one to Which the answer is urgently required. Failing that, it will be answered in these columns, providing it is of sufficient interest to the general reader to warrant its being dealt with in that manner.
London readers, those who ask for personal assistance, fall into a different category, and already they are ignoring one of the principal conditions which the Editor laid down in the notice to which I have referred. They must state, in their letter of inquiry, when they are likely to be at home or at their place of business, so that I can time my visits accordingly. • It is quite out of the question for me to travel half way across London on the off chance of finding a man in (this, I feel sure, my readers will say, is quite reasonable). What is happening now is that I am having to write to several correspondents asking them' to fix a day. If correspondents will state the day in their first letter, time and postage will be saved.
In dealing with these London inquiries, I am taking them in order of urgency first, and in rotation afterwards. For example, a man writes to say that he is offered the choice between a four-ton, petrol wagon and a steamer of the same capacity. He is in doubt as to whether the style of his business will permit of the steamer being used, and would like me to advise him. Meantime, the offer is only open for a day or so, as the vendor of the machine has other customers in view. This enquirer is given preference by me over another, whose letter actually preceded his, but who requires advice as to the preparation of his accounts. Obviously; the latter business will not suffer from postponement for a day or two. In every case, however, the letters are answered as soon as possible.
There are two important points raised in one of the letters which I have received, points which are worthy of further consideration. The first relates to the allowance for depreciation. My correspondent is conducting long-distance haulage, and asks if the figure for depreciation should not be higher on work of this kind than on short-distance work in town, involving many stops and a considerable percentage of empty running. We shall have to consider this matter in two ways. First of all, let us look at it as this correspondent sees it. He is clearly of opinion that the long-distance work is likely to rack up the chassis more than town work. Is he right ? I don't think so. Given a good driver, there is not likely to be much in it, for it is certainly a fact that frequent stopping and starting is. bad for any machine.
In the case of a motor vehicle much depends on the state of the clutch. If it is usually on the fierce side, then the machine will suffer pretty considerably, and, in any event, the gearbox is going to get much more to do in town. Empty running, too, is generally bad for the chassis of a heavy lorry because the springing is usually designed to be more suitable for a fully loaded machine; the consequence is that, when empty, the vibration of the chassis is likely to be somewhat excessive. On the other hand, on long-distance runs, one is sure to come across stretches of indifferent road, and even the best of drivers is likely, at times, to be in too much of a hurry to notice all of the humps and hollows in the road he is traversing. On the whole, as I have said, I do not think that there is much difference between the two as regards depreciation. There is another point, too. Depreciation, although reckoned generally as a "running cost," really depends also on the time a lorry has been in commission. A vehicle would depreciate even if it did not run a mile a week. For our purposes, I take a life of 125,000 miles, except in the case of certain special chassis which we are all aware do not last that distance. From the business point of view, however, it would be correct to write off the value of a lorry in, at the outside, ten years, so that if a machine does only a small annual mileage it really depreciates, from the accounting point of view, at a higher rate than one which runs a long distance in the year. For that reason the depreciation figure for the town-employed vehicle should actually be higher than that of the long-distance runner, and on this account alone I am justified in replying to ray correspondent in the negative.
He also asks why, in our table of costs, we charge rent against one vehicle only, and wonders whether it ought not to be spread over a fleet. The answer is that the rent it just exactly what each and every reader himseIf pays—no more and no less. The figures given in the tables which appear from time to time in this page are not inviolabfe. They do not pretend to he exact, but are averages based on actual figures of cost which I have at my disposal. They are only intended to serve as a guide and check— as a guide to the haulier who has no experience, and who wonders what his lorry is going to cost him to crun, and as a check on the actual expenditure of those who already own lorries. In real life, as one might say, the cost of running and the standing 'charges should be less, if'anything, than those which are given in the tables, and in all cases readers are 'recommended to compile their own tables of costs as quickly as they can, that is to say, so soon as they have sufficient data from which to compile them.
THE SKOTCH. B13