Janus comments
Page 72
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Army of small men
IMAGINATION may be an undesirable attribute in a politician. At any rate singularly little of it shines through the mass of legislation on road transport over the past two years or so. One licensing system is being scrapped and another takes its place. Road tests are supplemented by an elaborate scheme for plating and testing. Because other industries have a training board there has to be one for road transport.
Not a programme bristling with original ideas. Little real thought has gone into it. Politicians have been guided by a mixture of their own prejudices and popular misconceptions. Socialists cannot help thinking that operators have demonstrated their wickedness by rejecting the blessings of nationalization. A stiff punishment must be exacted. The result is a flood of harrying legislation which gives the operator no respite.
Public opinion makes road transport the scapegoat for all the troubles on the road. Even Press reports strengthen the impression that without lorries there would be few if any accidents and the roads would last for ever. The basic aim is to make life unbearable for the operator and the roads safe for the motorist. This approach fits neatly into the Government plan.
Wrong direction Pressures inside and outside Parliament have pushed the legislation in the wrong direction. The supposedly typical operator with a medium-sized fleet is made the target. This could be a fundamental mistake. Certainly such operators exist but there are many other categories. Parliament might have been better advised to make a start elsewhere.
What might have been the most rewarding sector of the industry is largely ignored. According to Ministry of Transport statistics—somewhat out of date but all that is available—there are 46,000 hauliers of whom exactly half are one-vehicle men. From more unofficial sources comes the suspicion—which by its very nature cannot be supported with statistics—that for every small operator on the Ministry's books there is another without a carrier's licence. The total of one-vehicle hauliers could therefore exceed 40,000 and there may be 10 times that number each with a single small van running under a C licence or no licence at all.
For the most part recent legislation has passed by this sizeable army of small men. Vehicles weighing up to 30cwt unladen have been specifically excluded from licensing. The operator with the single heavier vehicle may have heard or understood very little of what is happening. He even escapes payment of the training levy and therefore the attention of the Road Transport Industry Training Board.
In the wider field of education outside the confines of transport there has been controversy about quality and quantity—terms that have become familiar to road operators in another context. Contributors to the "Black Paper" which created discussion at both the recent party political conferences suggested that the more gifted students are being held back in deference to the mistaken principle of equal opportunity for all.
Criticism along these lines could not be levelled at what is happening in road transport. The more progressive operators have seized the chance to improve their knowledge and that of their drivers and other staff. For this they deserve credit. But it may be questioned whether achievement is in line with the true need over the industry as a whole.
There is a clash of principles. Industrial training is directed towards the improvement of efficiency. The new transport legislation is supposed to be designed largely in the interests of road safety. The two aims are not incompatible but neither are they identical. The operator with a fund of knowledge may sometimes neglect his fleet. Another operator who is the apple of his Licensing Authority's eye may know nothing of the techniques of costing, management, marketing and so on.
Certainly the operator who has knowledge or these refinements and takes steps to improve his knowledge is unlikely to have a badly maintained fleet or to indulge in practices which bring down the wrath of the Licensing Authority. For this very reason such an operator is least in need of guidance and control from above whether from the Ministry or the RTITB.
Same penalties It is easier and more pleasant to deal with operators of this kind. This contributes to the situation in which the one-vehicle man is largely left out of account. He is liable to the same penalties as other operators if he fails to meet his legal requirements but he is less likely to know what the requirements are and even less likely to be brought to book.
The resources of the Ministry—apart from those of the industry—are being strained almost to breaking point. The Transport Act 1968 was supposed to ease the burden of licensing. It shows no signs of having this effect. The process of changing from carriers' to operators' licences will take at least a year. New applicants will have to be dealt with at the same time. Operators with vehicles over 16 tons plated weight will want renewals of their A, B or C licences. All vehicles over 30cwt unladen will have to be tested each year.
Much of the work will be wasted. There will surely be little time or energy left over for pursuing the really gross offenders. Most of these will be one-vehicle men if only because they have the best opportunities for evading the law.
Paying more attention to the one-vehicle operator may seem like looking through the wrong end of the telescope. But it throws a new light on the legislation. Within the road haulage industry itself he receives considerable attention. At last week's conference of the Road Haulage Association the perennial regret was again expressed that he could not be persuaded to work more closely with his fellow operators and play a greater part in the industry's affairs.
Original impulse There is not a single category of owner-drivers: Some of them work largely or entirely on their own. Others are completely dependent on a clearing house or on one customer. Sometimes the relationship is almost feudal; the customer provides the financial backing and may even supply fuel and other services.
Small operators whose circumstances are similar are learning to form themselves into a group somewhat on the 'same lines as a trade union. Almost invariably the original impulse is the the ,need for an increase in rates. Other group activities come with experience.
Legislation does nothing to discourage this but does nothing to help it either. It was not even considered, for example, that incentives could be given for a group to hold a licence covering all the operators. There might be difficulties in such an arrangement but there could also be advantages, The spirit of co-operation would be encouraged. An operator against whom the Licensing Authority found it necessary to take action might be made to feel that he was letting down the group as well as himself.
There remains the problem of the pirate and unlawful operator. He is inevitably an unknown quantity: The hope is to eliminate him or reduce his numbers by stricter control and harsher punishment. The effect could be the opposite. The unofficial operator must feel that, if his chance of getting a genuine licence has never been bright, it has now disappeared. He can see no prospect of proving to the Licensing Authority that he has adequate facilities and financial resources and he is bound to be daunted by the formidable array of potential objectors. He has a vision of being marched direct from the traffic court to the condemned cell. His main hope must be that a Licensing Authority preoccupied with genuine operators will have no time to deal with him.
This problem has also been ignored. A passible solution might have been a moratorium on past offences concerned with vehicle operation. The operator who admitted his misdeeds would be granted a licence after giving the necessary assurances. As it is the pirates cannot even consider seeking the joys of respectability. They have no alternative but to continue until they are smoked out.