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Large artics the Ministry replies
Page 28
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• Commercial Motor was right in maintaining that the tractive units of articulated vehicles will be freed from carriers' licensing under the terms of the Transport Act, but wrong in maintaining that this would exclude large artics from carriers' licensing and quantity licensing, said the Ministry of Transport this week. The full text of a letter from the Ministry, commenting on the story published last week, is as follows: Your article under the heading "Definition 'boob' could free big attics" (Commercial Motor November 28) states that "Special authorizations [quantity licensing') cannot be applied to large articulated vehicles, and neither can these vehicles be restricted to carriers licence conditions unless the Government can rush through an amendment to the Transport Act 1968."
This statement is incorrect. The Act does not prevent quantity licensing or carriers' licensing being applied to these vehicles.
Later the article states: "This appears to mean that only the semi-trailer portion of an artic. can be regarded as coming within the continued carriers' licensing and the promised 'quantity licensing'." This statement is literally correct, but is also misleading because it does not go on to point out that the weight of the tractive unit of an articulated combination has to be added to the weight of the trailer to determine whether the latter is "a large goods vehicleand will therefore be subject to quantity licensing or continued carriers' licensing.
It seems that the misunderstanding has arisen through a misreading of Section 71(6) of the Act. This section provides that where the plated weight of the trailer in an articulated combination plus the unladen weight of the tractive unit exceed 16 tons (or the sum of the unladen weights exceeds 5 tons if the trailer is unplated), the trailer shall be regarded as a -large goods vehicle" and therefore
subject to carriers' licensing and subsequently to quantity licensing.
It seems to have been assumed that, because the section also provides that a hauling vehicle (including the tractive unit of an articulated combination) shall not itself be regarded as a -large goods vehicle", the weight of the hauling vehicle cannot be taken into account when determining whether the trailer is a large goods vehicle, This is not so, and section 71(6)(c) is not limited in the way you suggest.
No date has yet been fixed for the introduction of quantity licensing, and meanwhile large goods vehicles will remain subject to carriers" licensing. The situation will be the same as under quantity licensing. The tractive units of all articulated combinations will therefore be freed from carriers' licensing: but the weights of the tractive units will have to be taken into account in determining whether the trailers are large goods vehicles and therefore still subject to carriers' licensing.
The combination you mention of an unplated trailer weighing 4 tons 4cwt coupled to a tractive unit weighing 5 tons 16cwt would not be exempt from either carriers' licensing or quantity licensing, because the sum of the weights of both vehicles must be taken into account in deciding whether the trailer is a "large goods vehicle". In your example, the trailer qualifies as a large goods vehicle and would need to be authorized in a carriers' licence land subsequently in a quantity licence).
You might like to note, however, that the
anomalous situation whereby the carriers' licence fee for an articulated combination was twice the fee for a rigid vehicle of the same carrying capacity will not continue after 1970. since in future only the trailer potion of a large articulated combination will be liable to a fee.
J. P. MORRIS, Head of Information, Ministry of Transport, London, SE?.