Answers to Queries.
Page 19
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The Need for Licences.
[1959_1 " NORTH STAR " writes : " Can you give me any particulars with regard to the following ease ? We are going to start a service of miator chars-a-banes,
as a private erne between — and ie miles apart, Shah we have to ask permission from any borough council, or shall we be able to start right away without anyone interfering ? We shall open a garage in the first place."
ANSWER.—if you desire to ply for hire within any area over which town police in -or have authority, it will be necessary for you to secure licences from one or both of these authorities so to do. If, however, you only carry passengers who have paid their fares and booked their seats previous to their journey you will not require astage-carriage licence. If --and — do not employ their own police, under the Town Police Clauses Act, but use the county police, you will not require a licence to ply for hire within the boundaries of those towns.
A Country Carrier's Views and Doubts.
1900] " SARASATE " writes :—" I should be obliged for your opinion on the following. 1am in wholesale confectionery business, principally hawking with a covered van, carrying a load of about 10 cwt. (12 cwt, at most), doing journeys during winter averaging 50 miles a week, and summer about 80. I have van room on the premises, but not for a horse, so I hire at 17s. per week all the year round, the owner stabling, feeding, and looking after it, and taking all risk.
" Do you consider it would pay me to have a motorvau I The advantages I can eee. are: managing alone in winter, thereby saving lad's wages, say, 7s. a. week ; in summer doing without a man, saving a week, saving my own time on road, according to different rates of travelling, and being able to leave it outside shops without worry in any weather, by which changes I could give all my attention to customers, and of course could go further afield and do more business.
" Do you think I could get a good second-hand chassis for, say, 2B0, and have a body built to suit my requirements, or a van complete for 2100 or 2120? What would be the cost of running same ? On what terms could I get a, new one, as cost would be too much to pay out at once ? "
ANSWER.—The great difficulty in connection with your proposed scheme with regard to the employment of a. motorvan is the fact that you at present average such a low mileage, but, as you apparently realize that you can with ease go further afield for more business, and so increase its time of employment., there should be no question that you could profitably employ a motor vehicle for your purpose. It will save time if you carefully examine an article which appeared in this journal on the 1st February last (page 451). You will find contrasted there the relative costs, under the latest: conditions, of a onehorse van and a 10-15 cwt.. motorvan, You will find that the article is distinctly in favour of the motorvan, taking all the conditions into consideration. You should without difficulty be able to increase your mileage up to 120 per week, we assume?. Your suggestions as to the saving of your assistant's wages, of course, are appropriate. With regard to your suggestion as to the purchase of .a secondhand machine, this is a decision with which we are not as a rule in accord. Anyone who is contemplating a preliminary experiment with motor vehicles should not have, in addition to the unee:rtainty born of inexperience, the additional anxiety as to the possible had behaviour of a second hand machine, of whose previous history he is in nine eases out of ten not advised. You would do best to apply to one or other of the makers named in our advertisement pages.
Right to Refuse Public-service Lice-aces.
[I0C1] " OWNER " writes :—" Perhaps it will intereet your readers and be instructive to see how local authorities try to put, back motors in Nottingham. The Corporation had three, and they utterly tailed with them. You will see by the endorsement on the licence how they keep adding restrictions to our licences, endeavouring to make our position not worth the running. This would have been accomplished before this, had not the Beeston Council attended Nottingham Council in a body and insisted on some place to set down passengers in the borough. " What I wish to ask is : Can you tall me our position 1 For nearly two miles we are forbidden to set down a passenger or pick one up. Has a passenger a right to be set down from a public-service yehide at a reasonable place if he demand of the conductor to be set down t Can we carry him from ipne to two miles against his wish until we get to the appointed stopping-place ? The more our buses succeed, the more opposition we get from the authorities. We have not missed two journeys in two years, having always a vehicle in reserve. Our buses are quiet, and we never have a complaint against us.
(COPY OF CONDITIONS.)
"Passengers by the said motor char-h-bancs shall be taken up and set down in the city at the following places only, that is to say, the starting and stopping place of the said motor char-à-bancs in Stamford Street, and at any place on Derby Road between the Lenton Lodge of Wollaton Park and the western boundary of the city, and passengers from Beeston may also be set down at the junction of Derby Road and Lenton Boulevard on the inward journey, and taken up at the same place for conveyance to Beeston on the outward journey. " This licence is also subject to compliance (so far as the same are applicable) with the conditions on which licences for taxicabs are granted excepting, however, such conditions as relate to fares."
ANSWER.—There is no question that under the Town Police Clauses Act of 1847, under which municipal corporations took over their licensing powers, right is vested in them to make conditions, by reason of the fact that the Act does not say they " shall " grant licences, but only that they " may " grant licences in their discretion. Thus, if an applicant is not willing to accept conditions, he would no doubt get no licence at all.