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Sound and fury
NOISE is relative, according to the Minister of Transport. It is not difficult to understand what he means. Most people find the motorcycle more annoying than the heavy lorry partly because motorcyclists have a habit of racing down secluded side streets late at night or on a quiet Sunday and partly because the very size of the heavy lorry leads one to expect that it will make a certain amount of noise. It is more easily tolerated on that account.
Legislation can hardly be expected to reflect human reactions to different sounds of the same strength. The permitted levels vary according to the class of vehicle and not its nuisance value. Heavy goods vehicles, agricultural vehicles and buses and coaches are allowed the most latitude at 92 decibels. But the runner up at 90dB is in some respects the most irritating category of all, namely motorcycles of 50 c.c. and over.
Less powerful motorcycles are at the bottom of the list with 80dB. In between come light goods vehicles (88dB) and passenger cars (87dB). Evidently it is the existing standards of construction that govern the level. The Ministry could not reasonably set a limit that could not be reached by vehicles already on the road and satisfactory in other respects.
Noise quality?
Vehicles registered after April 1 1970 will have to meet more stringent requirements. It is even possible that when the new scales are drawn up some regard will be had to the quality of the noise as distinct from its volume and also to public opinion on various types of vehicle as noise producers.
Action will not be delayed until that date. Not much appears to have been done to enforce the present regulations since they carne into force last July. But the Minister has promised that more roadside noise checks are now to be mounted in co-operation with the police and that a noise check may even be incorporated (did you expect anything else?) in the heavy goods vehicle testing scheme.
One source of noise that has recently succeeded in annoying a number of people is Sir Gerald Nabarro. There is nothing wrong with the quality of his sound. His voice is loud but is not unpleasant. It is the content of his remarks that have upset his opponents.
A great deal has been said and written about his claim that official documents printed well in advance of the Budget on April 15 next showed that the annual car licence duty was to go up from £25 to £35. So far nobody seems to have examined whether the controversy he has aroused will have the effect he desires.
Sir Gerald himself seems to be in no doubt. "I am satisfied," he has said, "that everything I have done has been excellent propaganda to prevent the Chancellor putting up the tax." If it does go up to £30 or to any other figure less than £35 "we shall have saved the motorist from the worst predatory intent of the Chancellor".
Not many motorists will see a tax increase of at least 20 per cent as a victory. They may have a suspicion that it would have been better for Sir Gerald to have kept quiet. When tax increases or price increases or wage increases are first mooted there is a sense of outrage which tends to subside with the passage of time. If in the end Mr. Roy Jenkins raises the tax to "only" £30 he may find the gratitude of the motorist extended to him rather than to Sir Gerald. Even if he makes it £35 there may be relief that the increase is not greater.
Commercial vehicle operators have wisely kept quiet during the Nabarro fracas. They may have felt apprehensive. The last time the Chancellor turned his attention to them just a year ago he was proportionately even more savage than with the motorist. Car licences went up by 43 per cent; goods vehicle licence duties by 50 per cent except for the lighter vans.
In money terms the increase was staggering. For a 9-ton vehicle, for which the previous rating was £270 a year, the operator now has to pay £405. If the same vehicle is used with a trailer the tax has gone up from £306 to £459 a year. It must not be forgotten also that there was an extra 4d a gallon on the fuel tax and a further 5d a gallon imposed in the mini-Budget last autumn.
Favourite attack
It might seem that the Chancellor had done his worst for the road transport industry. There are still people to advise him that he is being soft on the haulier. The egregious National Council on Inland Transport which has been unusually quiet for the past few months has recently returned to the attack on its favourite victim—the heavy lorry most likely to take traffic away from the railways.
The opening proposal from the council is that the Chancellor should increase the fuel tax. This would be no more popular with motorists than with operators. The two increases last year put up motor fuel duty by 20 per cent and the British Road Federation estimates that in the fiscal year just ended it brought in £969m, more than the revenue from all forms of purchase tax.
The sop from the council is that concessions to road users should be made by reducing licence duties for cars and light vans. There should be only a nominal fee to cover registration charges. These changes in the basis of taxation will ensure that the main contributions to the Exchequer will come from those people who travel most extensively and use the roads most.
Sir Gerald may be tempted to include the council among his disciples. One thing at least certain is that, in the unlikely event of the Chancellor taking the advice of the council and reducing car licence fees to a nominal figure, Sir Gerald would claim all the credit.
There is a sting in the tail of the council's advice. Because heavy lorries damage the roads more than cars their owners should pay a "highly tapering vehicle tax". Proposals much on these lines were included in the orginal Transport Bill. No doubt the real intention here also was to make it more difficult for the long-distance operator to compete with rail.
Wisely the council does not go into much detail. The justification, one suspects, would as in the past be sought in the notorious American report long forgotten in the country of its origin but kept evergreen in the UK. It contains the magic formula which proves conclusively that some years ago heavy traffic reduced all the motorways in the country to a powder.
Different conclusion
Unfortunately for the council there is a British document which points to a different conclusion. A report from the Ministry of Transport entitled Road Track Costs was expected to demonstrate the case for Mrs. Barbara Castle's special and crippling road haulage charges. It gave a far different picture.
Every type of road user, the report concluded, paid far more in tax than would represent his share of the cost of the roads. Light vans were worst off with a ratio of 3.3:1, public service vehicles most fortunate with a ratio of 1.4:1. In between were cars with a ratio of 2.1:1 and heavy goods vehicles with a ratio of 1.8:1.
No apology is needed for reiterating these statistics. As Budget day approaches the suggestions will grow that lorry operators are still not meeting in taxation their share of the road costs. The aspersions should be dealt with as soon as they are made. Even other road users, such as motorists, are quick to believe them. Sir Gerald is certainly right in his belief that the Chancellor needs little or no encouragement to assail the road transport industry once again.
The one point of attack left by the Ministry statistics is that motorists carry proportionately a slightly greater burden than the operators of heavy vehicles. No very strong argument can be raised on this foundation.
Tax increases on road transport are a direct blow to trade and industry. The operator can make no economies or increases in productivity to offset the cost. It has to be added to the price of goods both for the home market and for export. The Chancellor should ask himself whether he wants this to happen before he decides to adopt what may seem an easy way of getting more revenue.