TML is a 'confidence trick'
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• When Mr Hugh Featherstone. director-general of the Freight Transport Association, addressed the London division of the Transport Managers' Club last week he described the transport managers' licence as "a huge confidence trick". He went on to explain that the "confidence trick" had been plagued by transport managers on themselves. While the potential holders of a TML could see some gain from the legislation, they had failed to see the price which had to be paid.
Mr Featherstone said that the general level of qualification for the transport manager was much too low and status in the past had been very poor. Transport managers had to accept some of the responsibility for the low status, employers had to accept a portion, but one of the principal reasons was that there was no one voice speaking for the transport managers. "There are too many professional organizations," he said. "Representation is much too fragmented."
Recognition by the employers of the importance of transport could not be delayed much longer, was Mr Featherstone's opinion. "The Transport Act is making costs rise and rising costs will send transport into the boardroom."
Although a statutory TML might not be introduced, Mr Featherstone warned that transport management would require to educate itself because, as he put it, "the Act has turned the world of transport that we knew upside-down".