Almost every time a new road transport regulation is introduced
Page 27
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it has a retrospective effect which costs the operator money. This was notably true in the case of braking efficiency regulations—and especially those relating to handbrakes where some manufacturers had for years taken advantage of flabby legal requirements to sell operators a feeble parking brake. And it certainly looks like being true in the case of the noise regulations which bite in July this year; ironically, it is the forward-looking operators' shiny new heavyweight vehicles which may prove the worst offenders.
Certainly there is too much noise on the road (and in the air, where we may soon be suffering supersonically, too, but some are more equal than others when it comes to restrictive legislation). We only hope that the new regulations are interpreted as leniently as the Ministry's preamble invites us to believe. A highly scientific subject, with sensitive instruments and elaborate implementation, is being grafted onto the plain business of running trucks on the road, and heaven help any operator who feels impelled to challenge a serious prosecution in court. One look at the schedule prescribing the site conditions should be enough to make him change his mind—or is this, perhaps, the lawyers' happy hut, ground?
There are some essential points to note. The 3db "allowance" to compensate for site deficiencies in roadside checks is the exact difference between "existing" and "new-vehicle" levels so, except for the difference in test conditions involved, the older vehicles will in effect have to meet the same standard as the 1970 newcomers when the "deficiencies" are taken into account. Also, no other country has roadside noise checks, and when the complexity of the site requirements is compared with the safeguards and tolerances of implementation one can perhaps see why.
If the Ministry had only enforced new-vehicle standards five years ago, or the manufacturers had voluntarily worked to intelligent estimates of their own, operators would not now find themselves faced with spending money to meet the legal limits.
Multi-purpose manpower
Mr. Ian Cunningham's fascinating and farsighted ideas for revitalizing public transport operation (page 46) should not lightly be laughed aside---as we are sure they will be by some tradition-bound operators and union organizers. Matching two-purpose vehicles with multi-duty men would mean oversoing a heap of prejudice concerning labour practices and investing a heap of money in new vehicles. But it is based on exactly the right sort of management principled for successful business: defining the requirement and then deciding how to meet it most effectively and economically.
It is in accepting compromises to overcome the inevitable objections tat such revolutionary ideas become diluted, but the visionaries should not lose heart because of this.
By chance, the remarkable Wernher Heubeck has a letter published in this issue. He has done things with Ulsterbus which would have seemed ,unbelievable three years ago—and whatever pitfalls he may face in future years he has at least demonstrated how to put a bus business back on its feet and pay the men more while doing so.