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COMMERCIAL MOTOR
Recognized in Business Circles as the Leading Journal.
The Authority on all forms of Mechanical Road Transport.
Largest Circulation.
Conducted by EDMUND DANGERFIELD,
IN this issue we give details of two light vans used by a London concern which embody advertising
apparatus of a very unusual nature. Page 632.
THERE are not many proprietary makes of engine marketed by British producers. Therefore, considerable interest attaches to the new types recently designed by a maker who has already achieved much success with other models, and described in our pages.
Page 628.
EXHIBITS at the Brussels Automobile Salon of types suitable for heavy work and for passenger-carrying were representative of the products of four countries, Britain, however, having ignored the importance of the Brussels Show as a source of orders. We briefly deal
with the Show. Page 617.
MUCH interest is contained in the prospect of employing engines of the Diesel type in commercial goods vehicles, and as the principles underlying their design are not very clearly understood, an article in this issue from the pen of an expert on the snbject (to be concluded in our next issue) should be found to be very
informative. Page 619.
THE use of salt solution contained in the hollow stem of a valve, for the purpose of assisting in the dispersal of heat from the head of the valve, is an interesting development. We describe the new type of valve, which, incidentally, was referred to in our previous isshe as being part of the equipment of a new engine of
American design. Page 629.
THE Lord Chief Justice and two judges have recently confirmed the decision of a stipendiary magistrate in a case where the police alleged that booking seats on a coach taking part in a long-distance daily service constitutes plying for hire. A barrister-at-law deals with this decision and editorially we comment upon the neesd for a revision of the licensing regulations
affecting long-distance coaches. Page 627.
OUR Parliamentary Correspondent in the Press Gallery of the House of Commons in his notes deals with various questions which *luring the week have arisen in the House in connection with the roads and road transport, and he deals, too, with the question put to the Government in the House of Lords concerning its intention towards the projected Bills to give greater road powers to railway companies. Pag;,'615.
THE growth of the motor mail service across the 600 miles of desert country which separates Bagdad and Beyrout has always been closely followed because of the bearing which the experiencevained by the Nairn brothers can have upon similar projects in other undeveloped places. Our Bombay correspondent has recently travelled over the route and gives his im
pressions in an article in this issue. Page 622.
Plying for Hire : Up-to-date Regulations Necessary.
THE vexed question "What Is Plying for Hire?" will probably never be settled, because, hoivever much the borderline may be narrowed, it still seems to remain wide enough far some bus or coach owner to take a stand upon7t, pretending, maybe, that he has not even an eyelid or anything more than the tail of his coat overlapping the plying area! There is, of course, sound reason why he should do everything possible to avoid being classed among those plying for hire in any given area or district, although he may desire to secure the reward of his operations which closely resemble such plying.
A daily service of ;coaches has been running between London and Bristol for some months and, in May last, the Metropolitan Police determined to test whether the method of operation brought it into the category of "plying for hire," the novel point about that method being the fact that passengers obtained their tickets some minutes before the arrival of the bus at the appointed place of departure, for the decision in the ruling case of Sales v. Lake, in 1922, had laid it down that the presence or availability of the vehicle was a necessary condition for plying for hire. This condition was fulfilled in the latest case in so far as concerned those passengers who booked in London and there took their seats in the coach, but the decision of the stipendiary magistrate; confirmed on appeal by the Lord Chief Justice and two other judges in the Icing's Bench Division, was to the effect that the booking of passengers at the stopping places en route constituted plying for hire in that not only was the vehicle available for the service, but it had actually started on its journey from London.
If this decision be accepted without further appeal to a higher court, the occasion would seem to offer for a full reconsideration of the regulations under which vehicles are licensed to ply for hire, with particular reference to the class of vehicle which in recent years has been developed for long-distance travel, for it would be absurd to apply to such vehicles the regulations which have served, and were and are intended to serve, for the bus which runs solely upon the streets of London. The conditions of service being so totally different, the vehicles must be quite unlike the London bus. Passengers who are to travel in them for 20, 50, 100 or more miles demand—and require—better seating accommodation, and this cannot be given in a vehicle the width of which is limited to 7 ft. 2 ins. In fact, we contend (but this is a side issue) that 7 ft. Ins, should be allowed for all passenger-carrying vehicles. and that the flow of traffic is not benefited by the restriction to 7 ft. 2 ins. Again, the deadroorn laid down by the regulations for buses ir 5 ft. 10 ins. This can, without inconvenience to passengers who travel long distances at a stretch, be reduced, with commensurate advantages in operating a vehicle on country roads.
In many respects a long-distance coach would not comply with the conditions laid down by the Metropolitan Police for "obtaining a certificate of fitness for motor omnibuses," and that is why the application cannot be made. Hence, the time has arrived for recognition of the fact that a new era of long-distance travel has arrived and to provide for it with suitable regulations. It must be remembered that the draft 'Road Traffic Bill excludes the Metropolis from its operations.
Co-operative Societies and Their Transport Developments.
HE 1,400 co-operative societies, although each -Iof them is an independent unit, are, in the aggregate, the largest users of commercial motor vehicles in the country. They have not, in the main, standardized their fleets; nor is there much likelihood of that being done. The requirements of their transport services are so varied and so predetermined by local conditions and needs that makers of vehicles and constructors of van bodies have plenty of scope.
Latterly, co-operative development has encouraged the use of travelling shops, and scores of 1-ton chassis have been fitted with bodies suitable for the supply of butchers' meat, fruit and fish, and hardware and drapery. These mobile shops are generally employed by the retail societies in the smaller towns to call on members living in the neighbouring villages. It is a policy calculated to counteract the competition of the motorbus services that are taking the people from the hamlets into the larger towns.
The provision of travelling shops for the textile and dry goods •trade is the means employed by the rural co-operative societies to prevent the loss of trade that they would otherwise suffer.
Many societies have larger lorries to transport goods from the warehouses of the supply firms to the central depots of the stores with several branches. All of them employ motor vehicles for coal delivery by the ton, although for 1-cwt. bag trade in closely congested areas, where many members have to be served in one street, the horse vehicle has not yet gone out of business.
The need of co-operative societies for expert guidance in the selection running and overhaul of their motor lorries is the basis of a line of business in which much can be usefully and profitably done by local agents. Whilst a few of the larger societies, such as those at Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds and London, have their own efficient engineers and repair facilities, the majority of medium-size societies have no such assistance. This is where the local agent should keep in touch with the management of the co-operative society, so as to be ready to assist when the unexpected difficulty occurs.
In view of the growth of the co-operative trading that is taking place throughout the country, the point we have raised is of business value to makers and repairers ; neither section should allow its faith in the system of private or jointstock enterprise to warp its judgment in regard to the value of co-operative orders. IN the tsetse fly belt of Africa the use of animal drawn vehicles is impossible, so the development in transport in, for instance, the Gold Coast Colony has been extraordinary. All loads were carried on the heads of porters—many of them females—over narrow paths through the bush. Then with the coming of the palm oil industry the tracks were widened to allow casks of palm oil or palm kernels to be rolled by three or four men, the streams being bridged by tree trunks. These 5-cwt. casks had to be rolled up and down hill for miles and often got out of hand. To-day the Colony possesses over 5,000 miles of roads which can be traversed by motor vehicles, and a careful study of a map of the Colony shows that, whilst many of the roads radiate from the ports and coast towns and from railhead and railway centres, yet it is possible to get by road from any one place almost to. any other place in the Gold Coast, Ashanti, the Northern Territories or the Mandated Territory.
An energetic road programme has been pursued since motor vehicles first entered the Colony in about 1907 and since the war the Great North Road, 240 miles long, between Kumasi and Tamale, has been completed, and in 1918 no less than £309,000 was spent on new roads and £132,000 on road maintenance. Just over three years ago £400,000 was set aside for surface reconstruction, a simple system, known over there as Tarmet, being employed, giving an enduring surface and pernlitting gross weights up to 31. tons on the Great North Road. On an ordinary road the weight is limited to 2,4 tons and on political roads to 11 tons.
' An interesting point about the roads through the cocoa-bearing districts is that the forest is so thick that It is impossible to locate the best line for a road, so the old bush tracks are followed and widened Sut, and no regard can be paid to gradient or to deviations which, in the past, had been made to avoid fallen trees or to reach quite unimportant hamlets!
TTTE question of a revision of the system of motor taxation in the Isle of Man is up for discussion, the Lieutenant-Governor having appointed a committee to consider the form which the tax shall take and what additional tax, if any, should be imposed. At present vehicles are taxed on weight, the tax on a car weighing between 1 ton and 11 tons being £8 per annum. In addition, £40 per annum must be paid on an ordinary 28-seater single-deck bus, and there are no quarterly licences. The big local operators induced Mr. Shrapnell-Smith to give evidence before the committee upon the advantages and difficulties respectively of a petrol tax, upon the impracticability of a tyre tax and upon the fairness or otherwise of the present schedule of taxation in the island. He expressed the opinion that motor coaches of a larger seating capacity than 24 persons should be permitted and larger buses than 28-seaters, and said that permitted speeds should be raised from 12 m.p.h. to 20 m.p.h., the roads being quite strong enough for the work.