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PLATING ROUSES RATES PLEA
Page 46
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BY S. BUCKLEY
RATE adjustments to compensate for the consequences of vehicle plating are being suggested by some operators, according to an authoritative source. It is claimed that this will be necessary because of the cumulative effect of competition from new and larger vehicles, coupled with growing apprehension as to the advisability of operating existing vehicles with greater payloads than recommended by the manufacturers.
This latter trend could well arise as the examination of commercial vehicles to statutory requirements becomes more stringent and regular. If so, the hardest bit, it is claimed, would be operators with a substantial proportion of quantity-produced four-wheelers and artics in their existing fleets with several years to run before replacement is normally due. Although built to carry loads of 7 tons and 10 tons respectively, they have been habitually loaded well above these amounts, to at least the former legal maximum gross weights of 14 tons for the four-wheelers and 20 tons for the artics. The resulting bonus" loadings, such operators claim, have been reflected in the low rates to which trade and industry have become accustomed. Remove the opportunities for such loading and rates, it is contended, would have to be increased.
Pleading of a special case seldom stimulates an enthusiastic response, and claim for an increase in rates on this score must be suspect at the outset, both in its validity and certainly in its reception, if put into effect.
Plating and allied problems are for the road transport industry to resolve internally. Its customers—trade and industry—if they spare any thought at all for hauliers' problems might contend that the larger vehicles now legally permissible should make for more economic operation. In fact, such contention—though logical in the long term—would be jumping the gun, since there must be a considerable interval before the new and larger vehicles form anything more than a small proportion of the total haulage fleet.
Nevertheless, any endeavour to adjust rates on a national level because of dubious loading practices in the past would be ill-advised in the extreme.