TRANSPORT TIPS FOR TRADESMEN.
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Particularly Addressed to Those Who are Replacing Horsed Vehicles by Mqtors, or Contemplating So Doing.
ONE OF THE preliminary questions which has to be settled by any trader desiring to make use of motor vans is the relative desirability of :—
(a) Owning and looking after the van. (b) Owning the van but getting someone else to attend to its maintenance.
(c) Paying a contractor for the use of the van.
Owning or Hiring—Which?
If there is regular work. to be found for three or four vehicles, there is no 'doubt about the advisability both. oi:Purchasing anceof running one's own garage. Obviously, if the van is looked after by someone else under a maintenance vonteact, that someone else is going to raake. a, .profit. The_employment of a. maintenance contractor may, however, be well justified, either as -a permanent or ,as a temporary measure, if only one or two vans are to be employed. It may then be cheaper to let the middleena.n have his profit than to provide a really efficient organization of one's own .upon an extremely small scale. Thus, for in-stance, ageneraleoverhaul will not take nearly so
i
long if it s .carrierboutabsrome convenient. time in a large garage adequately staffed. Again, repair, work is only occasionally needed, so that, unless one has a fleet of vans, it is difficult to justify the regular employment of a skilled maen for this purpose alone. On the whole, therefore, the small trader running only a single vehicle is probably well advised to house it at a local garage of good repute and to pay the garage a regular, sum for ordinary maintenance, or, possibly, an inclusive sum to "cciver repair work and periodical. Overhauls. Anyone who keeps a motor van, but does not givesit propenattention, eelpay for that attention to be provided, is certain, before long, to have serious trouble, and will probably blame the van and its manufacturer for a failure that is, in reality, entirely his own fault. Those who do not feel very great confidence in the complete reliability of motor vehicles for delivery work may prefer not to purchase for theniselves, belt merely to hire ley‘the week, month, or year. This probably costs more than to purchase and to pay for maintenance, but it has the advantage that, if anything goes wrong with the vehicle, it is up to. the conteactor to provide a. substitute to complete the deliveries and to carry on until the disabled vehicle
is ready for work again. . .
The Question of the Left-hand Drive.
One is hearing quite a lot just at present'about the dangers of the left-hand drive, and it is conceivable that the. agitationmay lead to some regulation making any vehicle which is driven from the left side illegal for use in this country. The matter is one whicli concerns the owners of light vans for delivery purposes, since certain American makes are now always constructed with left-hand drive. . The purchaser of such a vehicle 'must reckon on the possibility, if not exactly the .probability, of legislation, which would involve him in considerable expense. in respect of structural alterations. He must also reckon on the probability of a very antagonistic attitude by those in authority, if he has a vehicle steering. from the left and this vehicle participates in a serious accident-There are many coroners and magistrates who are firmly convinced that the lefthand drive is mherently dangerous and, consequently, if called upon to place the responsibility for an accident,would certainly be very much disposed to put the blame on the owner a the left-hand driven 1326 . machine. The main-point is, of course, that if, when overtaking any vehicles and endeavouring to pass the driver is seated on the left, he cannot see ahead until. he has pulled right out on to the crown of the road, and during this process be may collide with a vehicle coming in the opposite direction, but Only becoming visible to him too late to avoid an accident. in a rather similar way, the left-hand drive .might lead to accidents to pedestrians crossing the road or walking along it. One can quite imagine that insurance companies might and it advisable to charge higher rates for insurance' policies in respect of vehicles • so designed. Yet another ,point is, of course, that when travelling along a very winding country road, the driver, if seated on, the right, is somewhere near the middle of the road, and so can see fairly well round. corners in either direction. On the other hand, if he is seated on the left, he can see well round a corner turning to the right, but he cannot see round a corner
to the left. •
Gauging the Quality of a Driver..
It is always a difficult matter to judge of the efficiency.of one's -drivers, the bulk of whose ,work. is done-away from home and out of one's sight. One certainly is not juetified in condemning a driver merely because he does not get the same economical results that. some other man's driver gets, perhaps is a different trade over different roads and with a . different make of vehicle. Again, the. driver, while he may be responsible for ordinary adjustment's and the .smaller repairs on the road, is certainly not responsible as a ride for the cleaning, inspection and complete maintenance of the vehicle. It. is only When two or more vehicles of the same make and age are maintained by the same ,people with equal cate that one can fairly say that the higher cost of one as against the other are likely to be attributable to the inferiority of the driver. Even then, the utmost care is needed before judging the matter definitely. Supposing that one vehicle does a' longer round than the other, it certainly has an opportunity of showing a lower cost per mile covere_d. Again, one round may include severe hills, bad roads, dense traffic, or all three, whereas the other may be mainly on easy and level roads, where traffic is light,If our figures are got out in the form of costs pee ton-mile, an apparent lack of economy by one machine as against the other may not be due to the driver at all, but may be due to faults in our own organization, by reason of which the apparently. inferior ,machine is not given, agar rule, nearly so full.aloadas thenther .one. If one could be certain og the -uniforrn quality of tyres, 'their wear .would-be--a good 'criterion -of the efficiency of the driver as-such. A really b,ad drier v ill get. through a couple of sets of tyres in a mileage fOr. ..which one set would suffice for a good driver: This is due 'to his tendency to rush up the corners and other obstacles and then to jamb on his brakes violently. Habitually high ,tyre maintenance costs are, therefore, strong 'evidence against the driver, once one is satisfied that the alignmentOf the -wheels is not at ,fault. . High fuel costs under equal conditions are also substantial evidence. but these may be due to !Die-takes in carburetter, adjustment made in the garage and not by the driver himself, or to any of a dozen more or less obscure faults connected with the engine and carburetter, for which the driver is not responsible. One thing that one can Say for certainis that if, when two drivers change, machines, fuel economy changes with them, either one is extraordinarily efficient -or the other is decidedly not up to the mark.