90 a wife?
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I agree almost 100 per cent with those who have written to you concerning "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (CM August 12).
Like Mr Wells, I should like to hear of a professional running only 500 miles per week, and able to obtain 94p per mile for that. Anyone completing only this, and especially with a large vehicle, is not in business, except perhaps as an ice-cream salesman.
Operating on a mileage basis can often, if not always, be misleading. It requires only perhaps one day out of work in one week, to put all mileage reckoning entirely out, and what is lost that day can never be recouped.
A far easier method, and one that can be carried in the head, is to ensure earnings at so much per hour/day or week. I believe that, if operators aimed to clear a minimum of £100 per day for a maximum gross vehicle with ordinary flat trailer, £115 with tilt or van, and £125 with tank, or reefer, much working out of Figures could be avoided, and provided that expenses are contained within the reasonable, far less trouble would be experienced.
A guide on expenses can be used in checking, for instance, that a driver's pay/Nat Ins/holiday pay, does not exceed at most 25 per cent of vehicle earnings, and that the above total, for all employees does not exceed 30 per cent of vehicle earnings.
In my opinion, the reason why so many owner-drivers are employed today, is because of the so-called Employment Protection Act legislation. The only person this Act is of use to is the one not worth employing in any case — the good man has never needed protection; he has it built in, in his character, and will always be in work, and for a good employer. The result, therefore, is an ever-lengthening unemployment queue, and businesses refusing expansion, rather than take the risks involved in increasing employees.