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CLEAN BILL
Page 77
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Political Conuilentary By JANUS
MUCH as one would like to keep up with everything that is happening, events that may be of considerable interest and importance often take a malignant pleasure in disguising themselves as routine orders or consequential amendments, or else occur during the holiday season. The Chancellor of the Exchequer chose to embed in the thick of his Budget speech the proposal to colour duty-free diesel oil. If he had accompanied the announcement with a flourish of trumpets, he would have been assured of applause at least from a large number of road operators, who had been complaining for several years, that it was unfair to ask them both to pay fuel tax and keep fuel
records. .
A recent addition to transport legislation is the Road Traffic Act, 1960. It is a document of considerable size, running to 271 sections and 20 schedules. Its appearance has made little stir, and the inference is therefore that it contains nothing new. This conflicts with the more usual experience. The dark horse wins when everyone's eyes are on the favourite, the point of the speech comes when the audience have dropped off to sleep, and the significance of a long and exhausting legal document is often an unobtrusive footnote.
In spite of forebodings based on past experience, the new Act genuinely seems to leave the law unchanged. As far as can be detected, there are no hidden mines that will suddenly explode under the road user. There are no fresh burdens upon him; it only looks like that because so many of the old burdens are gathered in one heap. On the other hand, there is no lightening of restrictions; the road operator who reads through to the end will be sadder and perhaps wiser, but certainly not freer.
As a consolidating measure, the Act repeals wholly or in part a considerable body of previous legislation, from the London Traffic Act, 1924, to the Highways Act, 1959. A good deal of what it incorporates is repeated word for word, although there are occasional changes. Some material has been added, and there are also items that appear to have been lost. Even where segments from past enactments have been taken over complete, the editors have sometimes deemed it necessary to change the order, thus causing temporary confusion to people who had grown used to the old dispensation.
Split Into Three Thus, the enumeration of the circumstances in which a carrier's licence is not required, which was formerly Section 1(7) of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, is now relegated to the 13th schedule. At first sight there appears to be an extra case added, but in fact the first item is split into three, and the new list no longer includes the exemption of the use of a tramcar or trolley vehicle in certain circumstances.
What appears to be new is Section 174(5), following the list of items to which the Licensing Authority is to have regard when exercising his discretion on an application for an A or B licence. "For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared," says the Act in an unexpectedly downright fashion, that the list does not include the duty imposed upon the British Transport Commission by the Transport Act, 1947, "to provide, in such places and to such extent as may appear to them to be expedient, certain transport services."
To balance this addition there is Section 2(9) of the 1933 Act, which stated that "a person may be the holder of two or more licences whether of the same class or of different classes." As far as I can see, it is no longer thought necessary to say this in 1960. Section 2 becomes Sections 166 and 167, and survives relatively unchanged, apart from the omission I have mentioned and a drastic reshaping of the definition of an A licence. Previously the holder was forbidden to use an authorized vehicle for any other business of his except storage or warehousing incidental to his business as a carrier. The new clause irons out the double negative by giving him the right to use his vehicles "for the carriage of goods for or in connection with his business as a carrier."
Some attention has obviously been paid to style and clarity. Care has been taken where possible not to separate two parts of a sentence by a long catalogue. A notorious example in the 1933 Act was Section 1(5), beginning "For the purposes of this Part of this Act," and ending several lines later, "shall not be deemed to constitute a carrying of the goods for hire or reward." The new Section 164(5) combines both points at the outset. It is also interesting to note the final form, in Section 173(5), of a point that in its time has been the cause of endless discussion: "The onus of proof of the existence of the grounds on which a relevant objection is made shall lie on the objector."
Surprising Thing
Perhaps the really surprising thing about the 1960 Act is the reminder in unusual circumstances of legislation that had almost been forgotten. It comes almost as a shock to reach Part V and find it concerned with the licensiiig of drivers of heavy goods vehicles " on and after the appointed day." The procedure is set out in detail for granting the licences, for appeals against refusal, suspension or revocation, and the payment of "such fees as may be prescribed." The Minister of Transport is nominated to decide the appointed day. One might almost expect it to be within a few months, except for one point. The Licensing Authority will have to grant a licence to a driver who can prove he has been driving a heavy goods vehicle for at least six months in a year—and the year is the 12 months ending on April 1, 1934.
Road operators will not find much enlightenment on points that have puzzled and worried them for the last 30 years. A subtle alteration is introduced by Section 172(2) in the phraseology of the *instruction covering the vexed subject of "normal user." It is given a clause to itself and the two main items are separated. In the 1933 Act the applicant for an A or B licence was required to specify the facilities he intended to provide, and these would include the districts or routes where his vehicles would "normally be used." The main difference in the 1960 Act is that the districts or routes are no longer regarded as part of the facilities. The distinction is nice and no doubt accurate; it will make no difference to hauliers.
In due course there will certainly be published a detailed analysis of the Road Traffic Act, 1960. It puts the textbooks out of date in many small details, but can be given a clean bill of health in that it introduces no genuine innovations. If anybody hopes that the Act makes any clearer what is meant by normal user, or the localitf of a person engaged in agriculture, or even exactly when a container is not a container—then he is in for a sad disappointment. These knotty problems are unanswered. One wonders if the whole effort has been really worth while.