Haulage and the Institute
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IS week, for the first time in 47 years, a private rhaulier has been installed as president of the Institute of Transport. Since the presidency changes every year, and the loT spreads across all modes of transport, this may seem an overdue honour to that sector of road transport. However, the regrettable truth is that it is about all the recognition the private road haulage industry deserves in the councils of the 10,000-strong Institute, which is recognized as the major professional body in transport. There are some 40,000 private hauliers in this country. Only an infinitesimal proportion are members of the IoT. Why?
The new president (Mr. R. H. Farmer, managing director of Atlas Express) presented a stirring presidential address this week, much of which was an erudite defence of road hauliers. But at the end he posed a number of questions to the Institute itself, as possible avenues down which it could develop.
Mr. Farmer had this to say of hauliers: "Is it only the fault of the individuals in it that, for example, the road haulage side of the industry (which, after all, moves more than half the country's goods about) is so thinly represented? Are we better off without the contributions which some of the able men who have built up sizeable businesses in road transport might now be making to our proceedings? If not, since such men are presumably of an age at which they would be unlikely to tackle the examination syllabus, how do we encourage them to set about the alternative of writing a thesis for us? We, the members, know the value of the Institute and that it is far more than an organization existing primarily for the 'benefit of senior executives from the public sectors of transport, but are we doing enough to persuade others of this truth?"
The question is a good one for the Institute to asl itself, but the answer is an internal matter for it: members. COMMERCIAL MOTOR would like to ask its road haulage readers whether, in turn, they pa) sufficient attention to the undoubtedly high standards imposed by the Institute of Transport. Times are changing and entrants into haulage will increasingly neec the broad grounding and professional competence suck studies give them.