Examiner Gave Dent's "Full Heat Treatment"
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ATRAFFIC examiner of the Ministry of Transport this week admitted that Dent's Transport (Spennymoor). Ltd., of Tudhoe Colliery, Co. Durham, had been given the "full heat treatment" and, for a period, every one of their
vehicles seen on the road was noted and its movements checked later with the operator's records. This evidence was given during the second full day's hearing into the activities of the company. held at their request by the Northern Licensing Authority, Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, who had given notice that he was considering suspending or revoking their A and B licences. The inquiry had previously been adjourned because of the illness of a witness.
Mr,-J. L. Welsh, a Northern area traffic examiner, said that it was true to say that in Dent's case, fewer spot checks agreed with the record than any other operator in the area. The company were never ready or willing to produce their records and had been prosecuted for this. They had also been convicted on numerous occasions for records offences; warning letters, had been ignored; and many prohibition notices had been served on them.
Cross-examined by Mr. T. H. Campbell Wardlaw, Mr. Welsh agreed that he had made more calls on Dent's than on any other contractor in the area, but rarely by appointment He told Mr. Wardlaw that so far as he was concerned at one stage he had noted every Dent's vehicle he saw, which resulted in six or seven check reports in a short while.
In Deplorable Condition Mr. John Henry Dent, managing director, said that his company had Orchased vehicles and licences from the B.T.C., and in every case the vehicles had been in a deplorable condition. Slowly they had purchased new vehicles and had converted derelict premises into a modern warehouse. During this build-up he had had an unfortunate number of convictions in connection with the business recorded against the company, but he assured Mr. Hanlon that his house was now in order regarding maintenance.
Asked why he had been operating certain vehicles unlawfully, Mr. Dent said that he understood that once he had applied for a temporary substitution he could automatically run a vehicle, Mr. B. G. Montgomery, for the clerk to the Authority: "You have been operating illegally over the whole of this period." Mr. Dent denied this but admitted being paid for haulage on unauthorized vehicles.
The case was further. adjourned.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
EACH form of transport should be in a position to attract the traffics most suited to it, said Mr. John Hay, Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Transport, at the Coal Industry Society lunch in London on Monday.
In this country, he said, we seek transport co-ordination—a very different thing from transport integration. " Freedom of choice by the consumer is basic to any policy for transport; economic efficiency must be our lodestar and flexibility our watchword."