TRANSPORT TIPS FOR TRADESMEN.
Page 17
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Particularly Addressed to Those Who are Replacing Horsed Vehicles by Motors, or Contemplating So Doing.
APOINT in -the new Roads Bill that will be worth noting by traders is that when the question arises as to whether a vehicle can be classifies; as a trade vehicle, the feet that it is used for carrying its owner's employees in the course of their employment does not disqualify it.
Registration of 'Travellers' Broughams.
Hitherto, the law, in its strict interpretation, has insisted that a trade vehicle should be used solely for the carriage of goods and merchandise. The presence of the driver is presumably assumed; at any rate, one has not heard of any ease of a trader being prosecuted for having a driver on his van!
On. the other hand, officious members of the police force have, ma plenty of occasions, been responsible for the prosecution of traders for allowing two or three of their men to be carried ; for example, to or from ajole on one of the firm's trade -Vehicles. More ,particularly, the law has taken exception to the classification of a commercial traveller's motor brougham as a trade vehicle. Now the position for this type of conveyance seems to be quite clear. It is used solely for the conveyance of goods or merchandise in the course of trade, with the exception that it may also carry employees if the owner in the course of their employment. Presumably, if, the owner is his own commercial traveller, the same argument Oill holds good, provided that he takes, the precaution of being a paid official of his own firm.
Suptiosing we have a fairly highpowerecl ear fitted up for the carriage of samples and of the traveller who shows them, the right to olassify this as a trade vehicle may mean a substantial reduction in the duty payable. On the other hand, if a car of low horse power be used for this purpose, it is quite possible that it would cost more to registerit as a. trade vehicle than as a private ear. In that ease, all that is necessary is to use it, or to reserve the right to _ use it, occasionally for the carriage of the commeteial traveller, irrespective of his employment.. If, for example, he is authorized to use the car for pleasure at week-ends, and if he once made such use of it, the owner who had registered it as a trade vehicle would be liable to prosecution. It seems clear then that in a case of this. sort the choice as to the class in which the vehicle should be registered lies with the proprietor: He can choose whichever will be the cheaper or will give him the freer use of the rnaehine—whichever he regards as the more important.
Legal Uses of Trade Vehicles.
Another important point to know in the Roads Bill is that if a vehicle is registered for use solely for a certain purpose, and is subsequently at any time used for any other purpose, the person using' it shall, if • this second purpose involves the payment of a higher tax, be liable to prosecution and may be fined £20, or, alternatively, an amount not excee-eing three times' the difference between the east of the licence actually taken out and that of the licence requised to cover the use made of the vehicle. Thus, for instance, if a 30 h.p. lorry, licensed as a trade vehicle at a cost of IV per annum, is lent to the firm's, employees for a jaunt on a Sunday or holiday, the owner becomes, liable to a fine of et) (three times the difference between the £20 paid and the .R30 liability in respect of a licence based on hp.). Thus, when an owner of a van or lorry wishes to lend it occasionally to his employees, he will always render himself liable to prosecution by doing so; unless he has registered the vehicle on the horse-power basis. It has already been pointed cut in three notes that there are seine instatacesn which it.will be cheaper to register a vehicle on the horse-power heeds than as a trade vehicle. The writer cannot see that there ia any passibility of effective regulations being introduced to prevent the vehicle owner taking advantage of this fact. On, the contrary, the owner is legally obliged to take advantage o.'it if he wishes to reserve the right to use the machine other than as a trade vehicle. In all probability, there may be one or two prosecutions in 1921 in connection with cases in which a van or lorry has gat off cheap by being registered on the horse-power 'basis, but it is difficult to see how such prosecutions could possibly succeed. The owner need only use the machine once to take himself or a friend and a few personal belongings, say, from a private house to a railway station, and he has amply justified his action in not registering as a trade vehicle.
Carriage of Passengers on Lorries.
Next, as lea the case of a lorry oceaeionally -hired out to parties for holiday trips. This is rather more difficult. It might be argued by the police that the vehicle was b'eifig used as a. hackney carriage, and that the owner would, therefore, be liable to a fine of three times the difference between the trade vehicle licence fee and the hackney carriagelicence fee. This would probably amount to a very substantial sum. A hackney carriage is, however,defined as "Any vehicle standing or plying for hire, including any vehicle let for hire by a 00m...het-taker or other person whose trade or business it is to sell vehicles or let Vehicles for hire." In the ease under consideration, the vehicle would not be standing or plying for hire; it would be merely let t .a,party for a kiven time. It could not fairly be regarded as the property of anyone whose trade or business ie to let vehicles for hire. Iii the case we havein mind, the letting of a vehicle would be a. more incident, and the proprietor would not be dependent upon the letting for his livelihood.
Thus the decision would depend de. the exact legal meanin4 of the definition of a hackney carriage, and there might at lea,st.be some doubt' about it, because it might be argued that if a man let a -vehicle for hire, even though he did it only once, he wee, for the moment, participating in that particular class of trade or business. Perhaps eomeote will-have-the pluck to fight this case also and get a definite decision on it, though, personally, I should hesitate to advise my readers to take the risk of doing so, since the nature of a legal decision is always such a doubtful matter, even if the case is more obvious than this. On the draft application form for registration a note is given whieli says that a colinne'rcial vehicle used on any occas-iwi (the italics are ours) for any puspose other than the conveyance of goods in the course of trade must be licensed at the highest rata of duty applicable to the use to which the vehicle is put.
If this dictum should hold good it would tend to prevent the loan of a vehicle free of all charge for -the carrying, we will say, of a group of the owner's employees ta a football match. We are sure this is not intended, and either the note will be modified or its tenor not upheld in the courts.