gu iltame quatifiat
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Government proposes larch 1 to increase the or an hgv driving test I £24 to £33.50. Are serious when they say is must be kept down? they, too, taking intage of a monopoly rtion?
ley spent a lot of money ling details of the csals to various ciations asking for ments. The associations e their comments. Will heed be paid to them? on your life.
here can be no fication for this increase. believe me, is it merely }pose!. It is the Secretary tate for Transport's ?rhanded way of telling iere is to be an increase. he test lasts a scheduled hours, an examiner fucts three tests a day, 5.50 per day. I bet he Id like to be paid a -ter of that.
he costs of running a lng test centre can only iinimal: a little electric t, a little heating and al on a telephone that no one to answer it the examiner is out ig his job, earning a astic profit for the ernment.
the test is not already ng its way, the LA must arrying a lot of dead Id in his own office. lany companies will have rink very hard before asoring an employee for test. Many of the smaller raters will not be able to rd it at all and, as a iIt, will poach drivers 3 the larger companies I who can blame them), :big the larger companies n more reluctant.
:mild this be another ploy ?.duce the road transport istry to ashes, and have ds trains running along high streets?
Iriver training schools e a block-booking system tests. Under this system tests have to be booked a month in advance and paid for. A school with, say, four vehicles will have eight tests per week, so each week a cheque for £286 lands on the LA's desk. Each month £1,072 of the operator's capital will be tied up. He then has the task of selling these tests, a task made more difficult by the "proposal".
The Secretary of State tells us that the reason for the increase is to lighten the burden of the tax payer. If this were true, it would be laudable, but it isn't and he knows it isn't.
Who is to pay the increase on behalf of transport operators? The tax payer, of course. The examiners who conduct the hgv tests are often sent to conduct psv tests only to find the candidate has not kept the appointment.
Because there is no specific charge for a psv test, the cost of the examiner's time and expenses has to be covered by profits from the hgv test. If, as we are told, the fee is not enough to cover the test, then the tax payer has paid for every bus and coach driver's test.
The candidate taking the hgv is most often intending to get his livelihood from it, but the candidate for the pm/ often only wants another string to his bow, and a means of extra cash while he is on shift work for his full-time employer. Dare suggest a charge of £24 for psv and leave hgv as it is?
One final thought. In the 10 years of hgv testing the fee has been multiplied by 11. In 1988 a test could cost £368.50, provided our government and the EEC between them have not dicarded the 50 pence piece as an insignificant coin. R. A. HENDERSON, Ballwin, SW12