The Victims
Page 32
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MANY reputable operators are perturbed by the difficulty of controlling drivers when away from home. It seems that they can expect little help or sympathy from the unions, whose officers tend to take the view that employers have brought on themselves any trouble which they now experience.
The greatest problem is in compelling drivers to observe the legal hours and to halt for the night when the allotted span has been completed. The temptation to continue the journey home and to charge a night's subsistence is too much for many men. Thus, the employer stands not only to be cheated, but also to be fined and to have his licence suspended or revoked for failing to comply with the law.
A complementary problem is to supervise the compilation of drivers' records. Everyone is familiar with the flimsy excuses offered by some drivers for failing to fill in their sheets, or for completing them inaccurately. The difficulty of getting to the truth when a man is confronted with palpable mis-statements is equally well known.
Money lies at the root of much of the trouble. Although frequent increases in pay have been awarded to keep pace with the cost of living, the practice of booking hours that have not been worked, or of finding pretexts for short spells of Sunday work at double time, is common. Some operators are growing to believe that no journey of 100 miles can be completed in less than 11 hours.
In some eases this form of dishonesty is spreading to old hands with hitherto unimpeachable records. These men have found that others profit by lack of scruples and they fail to see why they should be placed at a financial disadvantage.
There seems to be no way of protecting good employers against the results of drivers' indiscipline. Employers who cause men to break the law deserve no sympathy, but those operators of repute are, unfortunately, liable to suffer with the bad.
A heavy responsibility rests on the Licensing Authorities' inspectors in investigating the circumstances of breaches of the law on hours and records before they institute prosecutions. No operator who has genuinely tried to comply with it should be brought to court simply because he cannot be at the elbows of all his men when they are away from the depot.