CATALOGUE OF WOES
Page 59
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IF FUEL RATIONING comes it will handicap every one to a greater or lesser degree. The haulier may be justified in claiming to be the hardest hit. With a reduced mileage he will be fortunate to obtain more traffic per journey than at present. The possible relaxation of the restrictions on C licence operation may deprive him of work which he would normally expect to have. His running costs may fall slightly but standing costs will remain as high as ever.
Even without this final stroke of fate many small operators must be finding difficulty in keeping their businesses solvent. The indications should be treated with reserve. More than once in the past the knell of the small haulier has been sounded prematurely on the strength of the bankruptcy statistics and of offers of businesses for sale at low prices. In contradiction to the long succession of funeral orations the Ministry of Transport only three years ago managed to find 23,000 one-vehicle operators and estimated that 85 per cent. of hauliers owned five vehicles or fewer.
Small man's complaint
In so far as he has been able to make his voice heard the small man's constant complaint has been of rising costs and of rates which do not keep pace with them. Most other operators have had much the same experience. The explanation is that hauliers of all kinds have been able to make economies. Better techniques have been developed; vehicles give better performance and break down less frequently; higher average speeds have become possible as well as legal.
Although he has virtually no resources on which to fall back the small operator has kept his prices down and managed to make a living. Perhaps his fortune has been not to meet too many problems at a time. If this is the case his luck may be running out. Many changes are taking place or lie ahead. Almost all of them in varying degrees will put up the costs of the haulier. Rationing would be only the latest to be added to a long list.
Even the C licence holder to whom costs are not the major consideration is becoming concerned at the extra money he will have to find to meet the demands of new legislation. Mr. G. Turvey, assistant secretary, Traders Road Transport Association, has put at between £.15m. and £30m. the cost to the road transport industry as a whole of the new requirements concerning brakes and the plating and testing of vehicles. With a greater share of the larger vehicles, for the most part used more intensively, hauliers will have to bear a substantial part of this considerable sum.
In theory there ought to be corresponding gains in efficiency. The obligation to maintain vehicles at a satisfactory standard should mean more work from the vehicles and fewer troubles. Operators with a sound system already installed may find little difference but will have to meet the extra cost of such things as brake conversions and bear the loss involved in sending vehicles to be tested.
Less efficient operators—and this will include a large number of small hauliers— will be put to considerable expense to bring their vehicles to the appropriate level of fitness. The reproach may be justified that they ought to have done so without the need for legislative prompting. The fact remains that many vehicles which have not been properly looked after have given good service in the sense that they have performed all that has been demanded of them. Although he has not acted sensibly or responsibly the operator has got away with it.
He can no longer do so. He is faced with the double burden of making up for past neglect and conforming with new standards. He may have to find a good deal of money quickly. In present circumstances especially many operators will not be able to bridge the financial gap which will shortly stretch in front of them. Expectation of troubles even on the other side will make their flight from road haulage the more precipitate. Idle time at testing centres will be the least of their problems. Among other things will be much heavier penalties for breaches of much more stringent regulations.
As against the possibility of increases in the permitted lengths and payload of vehicles is the harsh fact that many of them will no longer be allowed to carry as much traffic as before. The tipping vehicle operator will be particularly hard hit. He has for many years carried, for example, a 10-ton load on the fortified version of a vehicle designed normally for no more than seven tons. To cater for the same payload as in the past he may now have to spend perhaps 40 per cent. more on his vehicles.
Where an accumulation of such substantial cost increases hits the individual operator it is easy to see the danger especially if he is in a small way of business. Increases of the order of 40 per cent, may be uncommon but there are others somewhat smaller of which the effect could be even more serious. An examination by the Road Haulage Association of the trunking schedules established by some of its members, shows that the proposed restriction of driving time to nine hours in any period of 22 hours may reduce the effective work of a long-distance driver and therefore of his vehicle by nearly 20 per cent.
Adding to the problem
There are drivers of tipping vehicles to whom this will also apply. In such cases the Minister of Transport's hope for an increase in productivity seems particularly vain. Adding to the problem is the demand, now at last becoming clear, for a wage increase which if granted would in most cases amount to 15 per cent. Here again the operator cannot rely on getting anything back in the way of harder work. His prospects seem almost as gloomy from the training levy which, again according to the RHA, will deprive hauliers of over £3m. and return them no more than Lim. in grants.
When this catalogue of woes is rehearsed the fate of at least the small haulier seems at last to be sealed. Events may still falsify expectations. The amount may have been calculated but possibly not the effects of the increases stressed by Mr. Turvey in the costs and responsibilities of C licence holders. Those belonging to Mr. Turvey's Association will no doubt be able to cope. Many others may come to the opinion that it is not going to be worth while running their own vehicles and that it would be wiser to pass the headaches with the traffic to specialists. If rationing does not upset the balance hauliers may find the opportunities for expansion greater than ever before.