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Operators' licensing will get tougher
Page 30
Page 34
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WORRIES ABOUT WORKMANSHIP OF THE REPAIR TRADE: REPORT OF SOUTH WALES MEETING ON MAINTENANCE
by John Dickson-Simpson • In the re-drafted application form for an operator's licence is included a statement of intent on maintenance. An operator has to state: 1, that his maintenance arrangements will keep his vehicles in "a fit and serviceable" condition; 2, that drivers will be able to report any defects in vehicles (and that records of these reports will be kept): 3,that regular inspections of vehicles will be made; 4, who will do the inspections; 5,that he will take action on any faults shown up by inspections; 6,that for 15 months he will keep records of all inspections and repair work carried out (no matter who actually does the work).
All operators are going to make this statement of intent and on their promises (allied to what a Licensing Authority might already know about an operator's behaviour) they will most probably get their first operator's licence.
From then on, however, their licences to operate will be constantly at risk; they must live up to their promises. Their vehicles and their premises will be inspected by Ministry of Transport men—and standards will be tightened as time goes on. It will become increasingly difficult to get licences.
This was the essence of some straight talking by Ministry men Mr. J. Lane and Mr. C. C. Toyne at a packed meeting of operators at Cardiff on Wednesday of last week organised by the South Wales Maintenance Committee.
But having done their best to scare the pants off the hundreds of operators assembled, the Ministry men and the South Wales LA Mr. R. R. Jackson, subsequently tried to reassure their audience that there was really nothing to fear—not even by the owner-driver.
All that really matters in the end is the condition of your actual vehicles, was the message from the disciples of government.
"I know owner-drivers who look after their vehicles by the side of the road— and their vehicles are a credit to anyone in South Wales", said Mr. Jackson. He went on to disclose that he had been running a virtual operator's licensing scheme for a long time in South Wales. "I've been doing fleet inspections prior to licence renewals and we've now got big dossiers on all A and B licensees." Therefore hauliers. at least in South Wales, would not really notice any change, was Mr. Jackson's opinion.
The operators were not so readily reassured. Maybe the thoughts of all those dossiers looked a bit threatening. The small operators were particularly concerned. Question after question came up about the responsibility for quality of repairs. It was the motor trade—or rather the quality of the trade's workmanship—which was doubted in no uncertain terms by the South Wales operators.
The operators' concern stems from this: that, in law, the mechanical condition of vehicles and trailers is the responsibility of the user—and the -user" in this legal context is whoever employs the driver, not whoever owns the vehicle.
So if an operator hires a vehicle, he is still responsible for its mechanical fitness, no matter who does the maintenance.
Likewise, if an operator relies on an outside garage to maintain his vehicle. it is the operator and not the garage who takes the rap if the vehicle should be found still defective. "Why doesn't the Ministry approve commercial-vehicle repairers as well as operators?" the South Wales men wanted to know.
But the Ministry is not prepared to do such spoon-feeding, firmly said Mr. Lane and Mr. Toyne. Ordinary commercial pressures should be sufficient to attain the high standards required, they thought. "If a garage does a bad job, then don't use it again. Go to another garage", was their advice.
This would be a sound Ministry argument if ordinary commercial pressures applied, but they do not apply, the desperate operators tried to point out. Demand for skilled maintenance far exceeds the supply. If repair work is to be confined to those garages which can be relied upon to do a good conscientious job then there are going to be precious few garages to whom operators can turn— and they are overloaded with work anyhow. Surely, the operators said, the answer was to improve the standards of the garages. And to do so required a bigger stick than "ordinary commercial pressures".
It was clear, said Mr. T. J. Goldrick, chief engineer of the Freight Transport Association, who was among the speakers and advisers on the platform at the Cardiff meeting, that it was insufficient to put a vehicle into a garage and then assume that it was 100 per cent fit for work. Every operator needed his own means of subsequent inspection to make sure that a garage had done what it had been asked to do.
What the Ministry meant by "fit and serviceable condition" was "up to the standard of the annual MoT test". So every operator needed someone capable of inspecting to that standard. This, said Mr. Goldrick encouragingly, was not necessarily a skilled job. To do inspections as distinct from repairs, men could be quickly trained. The FTA inspection scheme could help small operators in this respect.
Who could help the small hauliers, though, someone muttered in the audience; the RI-IA does not have an inspection scheme.
Who is going to make sure that vehicles left the manufacturers in "fit and serviceable condition" as well? Not the Ministry of Transport, it seemed. "Ordinary commercial pressures" again. But there were rays of hope from the platform on new-vehicle quality. The chairman, Mr. T. S. Ross, of Ross Garages Ltd., extolled the virtues of the South
Wales Maintenance Committee. "Tell the committee of any complaints and we will get them sorted out with the manufacturers. The committee is at the disposal of any operator in the area, whether or not he is a member of a trade association."
British Road Services is helping as well, according to Mr. W. V. Batstone, the BRS engineering chief. He said that BRS had just set up regular liaison meetings with manufacturers. Moreover. BRS now had its own quality-control inspectors on the assembly lines at the manufacturers.
The operators at that Cardiff meeting must have thought that if BRS had to have its own quality-control men at manufacturers then that only went to confirm that their criticisms of quality were not flippant. They still looked as worried when they left the meeting as when they arrived.