OPINIONS FROM OTHERS.
Page 30
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The Editor invites correspondence on all subjects connected with the use of commercial motors. Letters should be on One side of the pater only and typewritten by preference. The right of abbreviation is reserved, and no responsibility for views expressed is accepted.
The Tables of Operating Costs.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[2,4871 Sir,—We are extremely interested in your operating costs on pages 188-193. There is one item which we think might have been added for interest's sake and that is the total cost of the vehicle, as vehicles differ so much in price. As it happens, we have been going in for two more 2-ton tipping wagons, and out of about 12 quotations the prices varied from £495 up to £675, which is a large difference, and it is rather a laborious process to multiply your depreciation figure by 160,000 to get the cost of the vehicle and then to have to readjust same, also the interest.
Different people, of course, work their depreciation in different ways.
We, as it happens, work ours on a compound basis, gradually letting the depreciation figure get less and less, and we balance this amount by keeping the figure for depreciation, plus repairs, the same throughout the life of the vehicle, so that the running costs on this item remain the same, but you get a true figure of the depreciation of the vehicle. No doubt for many ordinary traders this might be rather complicated.
We should like to know what you consider ought to be done with regard to depreciation and interest on capital if you only run your vehicle for six or nine months in the year, as, although the vehicle may not mechanically depreciate, its market value does. Also the interest on your capital naturally goes on, as well as your standing charges. Presumably, if you can only run your vehicle for a certain proportion of the year, you must be able to make a higher amount of profit during this running, so that in its cash account it can wipe off the standing charges while it is doing nothing. —Yours faithfully, D. F. PILKINOTON, Director,
• THE CLIFTON AND KERSLEY COAL CO., LTD.
Police Methods and Bench Treatment.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
12,4881 Sir,—It is sometimes a little difficult to reconcile the attitude of the police and magistrates with the purpose for which they are supposed to exist; that is to say, for the protection of the public. In their dealings with petty infringements of the traffic laws their methods are unduly severe and entirely lacking in consideration.
The pages of this journal frequently contain accounts of the almost vicious infliction of fines on drivers for breaches of regulations presumably framed for the protection of all who use the roads.
A lorry driver, like myself, is, perhaps, not qualified to comment upon the making of laws, but may be permitted to wonder when this "frightfulness" is pursued and whether better results would not in the long run be secured by hints or warnings from the police or a quiet admonition from the bench.
The drunken driver and other dangerous pests of the road deserve little sympathy and are excluded from these observations, but when one sees a sober driver fined 20s. for having failed to observe that the circular glass covering of the licence holder is cracked, the punishment of the driver, which usually includes the loss of half-a-day's time, seems to be somewhat out of proportion to the offence.
On the same grounds, an adventure which befell the writer and ended in the payment of the now usual £1 and half-a-day lost in watching and hearing a number of similar extortions, cannot be said to have done much to make our roads any more safe or any more usable. My lorry was standing with a portion of the rear number-plate obscured, which is a punishable offence.
c46 The eye of the law detected this breach of the regulations, and disappeared, to reappear when the lorry had been started up and proceeded a few yards, with the stated result. There seems a little overstraining of the point somewhere, but precisely the practical value of these methods is a little obscure. The fact that the incident occurred on a little-frequented country road may, or may not, afford a clue.
The machinery by which offenders are summoned to the court also seems to be unnecessarily cumbrous, and liable to frighten nervous and perfectly innocent people who happen to be related to the offender. A. constable in uniform delivers the summons when the driver is away (as he would be at work during the hours of duty allotted for this purpose). While he is verifying the address the driver's relatives are more or less in the dark as to the real nature of the business, and, as precisely the same formula is adopted to apprise them of an accident, it may be easily understood that if the family has at any time had experience of an accident to one of its members the worst is feared, until the trivial nature of the case is revealed.
In one instance known to the writer the woman who received the summons tor a faulty silencer having been used on the road by her husband had but a year or so before been informed in a similar way of the death of her father in a smash. Comment is not needed to indicate her feelings, but one may ask if the ends of justice would not have been as well served by the employment of the more familiar postman.
It is to be feared that, in regard to the bettering of our national traffic problem, we are progressing sideways rather than forging ahead.—Yours faithfully, Croydon. E.S.T.
Producer-gas Experiences.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[2,4891 Sir,—With reference to the issue of The Commercial Motor for April 20th, in which there appeared an editorial entitled "The Call for Producer-gas" and an illustrated article entitled "Interesting Producergas Developments," it may interest you to know that the identical lorry referred to in the article, with load and sufficient fuel to make the whole run from London to the Leyland Co.'s works at Leyland and back to London, started out on Thursday, April 15th, and ran non-stop from London to Wolverhampton, a 122i-mi1e journey.
On the Friday the morning was taken up with demonstrations to Guy Motors, Ltd., who have an order for tractors to be fitted with the Tulloch-Reading Voducer from a certain Colonial Government and from a wellknown Cotton Corporation, and the lorry then ran to Newcastle-under-Lyne, where the night was spent. The next day it ran on to the Leyland Co.'s works, to give demonstrations there, and it returned to London at f he end of last week.
The distance from London to Preston is 235 miles and the variable compression engine and producer have run. without. the smallest check or difficulty in any shape or form, with the exception that the driving chain broke on the road but was replaced in a few minutes. The weather during the earlier part of the run on the Friday was positively appalling, rain coming down in sheets the whole day long, but this (lid not affect the running in any way, which averaged between 15 miles to 16 miles per hour without any pressing.
It may interest you to know that the journey from London to Wolverhampton included five stops by the police, who seemed to take a lot of interest in the posSibinties of an alternative fuel to petrol —Yours faithfully, . T. G. Tur.Locu. London, S.W.1.