What is a Private Party?
Page 51
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*I your issue dated August 28 you referred to Blackpool Town Council as having approved, at a meeting on ugtist 25, a resolution to support the Law Society and e Health and Pleasure Resorts Association in pressing e Thesiger Committee for a statutory definition of the rm "private party."
On the assumption that the Thesiger Committee is e correct body to issue such a definition (an assumpm upon which Lhave grave persona 1 doubts), no good n be served by defining Section 25 of the 1934 Act any way whatsoever, if higher judicial authority can hodically reverse its conception of the Section's iplications and intentions.
I submit, on behalf of all operators who have privatere • business, that full compliance with Section 61 of e 1930 Act, and Section 25 of the 1934 Act, is all any telligent person can do to retain the good faith of e public who seek the operators' services.
I have heard it said that this sudden change in the terpretation of the phrase "Special Occasion," is not '.ogether an accidental change of legal opinion based on fresh scrutiny of the Act. It is, however, not for e or any Other operator to comment on this dire issibility.
Sufficient to say that, having regard to the vicissidinous activities of the higher legal minds, the ierators' outlook might well be "Business as usual." The form, "Contract carriage hire quotation for ivate party," which this company adopted at my ggestion after the past war, contains under "Terms id Conditions of Hire" the following clause:— The Company's vehicle(s) are let to actual Hirers for the purpose of private parties upon special occasions. The Hirer undertakes that the provisions relating to contract carriage operation contained in Section 61 of the Road Traffic Act 1930 and Section 25 of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, and any other enactments or regulations for the time being in force, are observed and that the journeys in question are bona fide contract carriage operations within the area or distance for the time being allowed, The Hirer will be liable to the Company in respect of any breach of the above provisions.
We are quite content to rest our private-hire activiticl, on this basis, until the situation becomes resolved. vourabiy or otherwise.'
DEREK MOORE-HEPPLESTON, Maltby, Rotherham. Manager, Peel's Tours.
A Problem in Beet Haulage
NOTE with interest a remarkable time-table on page 669 in your issue of The Commercial Motor for ly 3. It refers to sugar-beet haulage. As the average farm worker does not start work until 30 a.m., and it is still dark until almost 7 a.m. during
e winter months, by the time the farm workers start e driver has spent an hour loading, half of which has en in the last hour of darkness. When help finally rivesthey set to and finish loading six tons in half an Mr!
Having arrived at the factory, where he is rushed rough all the usual formalities, such as queueing to
weigh in, queueing to have his sample taken, and queueing to unload, not to mention queueing to weigh out, this remarkable driver is on his way back to the farm after the short delay of 15 mm.•
• This extraordinary performance is repeated not only once, but twice during the day. Perhaps S.T.R. does not know that often a driver has to wait three, four, and sometimes even five hours to get into the factory. Another point that S.T.R. may not know is that some factory weighbridges close at 430 p.m. and others at 5 p.m. prompt, whereas this driver is allowed in at 5 p.m. 1 have arrived at the factory at 4.45 p.m. and have been refused admission. I had the choice of parking the lorry and getting home the best way I could or returning loadeda distance of 40 miles...
* I quote from a notice at one factory " Mum, is dad dead?"
"No son, he has-only gone to the sugar-beet factory!" This is a very apt observation on present-day conditions. Clacton-on-Sea. N. A. PARTRIDGE.
[The time-table to which Mr. Partridge refers was a recording of an actual day's work.. It was one of many, and -was extracted,from a bundle of.such time-tables, some of them similar to the one published and some different I am, as a matter of fact, well aware that conditions are not invariably the same as those quoted in my article, nor are they invariably the same as those quoted in Mr. Partridgc-s letter. . Nevertheless, something ought to be done to improve the 'conditions at the particular factory which Mr. Partridge has in-Mind. According to my information there is at each factory -a committee of three, one representing the factory; One the farmers and one the harmers: the last is usually elected to his job by the local. area of the Road Haulage Association. Perhaps, if Mr. Partridge were to get in touch with the members of that committee he would obtain redress. In any event the conditions described in the letter are not usual in all the factories. most of which I have visited from time to time, the first Occasion being in 1928.--S.T.R1
Some more Early Readers
REGARDING your query as to who is the oldest reader of The Commercial Motor, I thought I would like to put in my claim. I first bought the journal on March .16, 1906, at the time I joined the Vanguard Motor Bus Co. in Albany Street, Regent's Park, this concern being afterwards taken over by the London General Omnibus Co., Ltd. I continued to purchase it after joining the K.T. Tyre Co., when I also had the pleasure of meeting your advertisement manager:
In 1913 I joined Charles Macintosh and Co., Ltd., who were manufacturing solid tyres and were later taken over by the Dunlop Rubber Co., Ltd., by whom I am employed. I am still on your list of stibscribers.
Southampton. W. J. BRYANT.
I HAVE been taking The Commercial Motor since
September, 1911, first buying it at Gateshead and then until 1920 in Yoker, near, Glasgow, and now again at Low Fell, Gateshead. For two years I sent copies to Hong Kong, and only recently have disposed of hundreds of back numbers, but I still have in the house a copy dated January 24, 1918.
Low Fell, Gateshead. J. I. WILKINSON.