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Taking more and taking time
AT a time when the economy is said to be expanding, it is natural to expect that every goods vehicle is being kept fully engaged. According to many reports, this is not happening. A shortage of drivers, especially those with heavy goods vehicle licences, compels some operators to keep a proportion of their fleet standing idle.
In spite of this, no complaints are coming from trade and industry of a dearth of transport. The only noticeable effect is that hauliers are in a better position than usual to bargain on rates or, as they would prefer to put it, to make the proper charge for their services. Apparently, fewer vehicles are carrying a greater volume of traffic than before. In other words, the productivity of the individual vehicle has had to be increased.
Recent calls for higher speed limits might reasonably have come from goods vehicle operators as part of their effort to meet demand. Instead, it is the Institute of Advanced Motorists which has taken the lead in proposing a 90 mph speed limit on motorways. The AA and the RAC have both supported the idea, without necessarily going as high as 90 mph.
Part of the argument is that the higher limit would reduce "bunching" behind cars travelling at the present 70 mph limit. The point is a good one, but must be balanced against the higher risk of accidents from other causes. Mr John Peyton, Minister for Transport Industries, has no doubt on which side the balance would come down. The cost in lives of raising the speed limit, he has said, would probably be "in the order of 300 to 400 in a year".
Most people would agree that the increased limit would certainly not save lives. There must be another basis for commending it. The RAC, for example, has said: "There is little point in building motorways if speed limits are unrealistic.
The statement is made in support of an 80 mph experiment. All the same, it is remarkable. The people responsible for building motorways at no time regarded them primarily as race-tracks for motorists. The main purpose was to provide routes for trade and industry on which commercial traffic could travel safely and quickly away from built-up areas.
Because roads can serve more than one purpose, it was also possible to make provision on the motorways for the private car. The benefits have been considerable. Over a considerable area of the country, the motorist can already range far and wide and find a traffic problem only at each end of the journey. There is also substantially less risk of an accident on a motorway than on an ordinary road. Why the motorist continually yearns to go faster cannot be explained in rational terms. Not much time is saved except on very long journeys. The concept of speed for speed's sake has taken some hard knocks lately with criticism of the Concorde programme and the termination of the tracked hovercraft experiment. There is a greater tendency than in the past to investigate the social and political need for high-speed transport before taking action.
The road transport operators' approach has always been along these lines. It is a truism that time is money to the haulier, but he shows no inclination to call for higher speed limits. He has absorbed the lesson that it is better to travel safely than not to arrive at all.
Within towns, the commercial vehicle, like the car, must regulate its pace to that of the rest of the traffic rather than to the speed limit. The most serious loss of time takes place at the point of turnround, where vehicles may be kept waiting for hours or even days for a variety of reasons, including local traffic restrictions as well as the lack of adequate facilities and labour at the terminal.
Measured against this scale, the saving of a few minutes on the motorway portion of a journey is not significant. Although the latest breed of lorries is capable of travelling comfortably at 70 mph, there is no great pressure to bring the legal limit up to this level. Only the motorist, whose time is usually his own, seeks to cram as many miles into it as he can.
The transport operator is more concerned to make the maximum use of the space available on his vehicle. Had his opinion been sought, he might well have been against the motorists' wish for a higher speed limit. On the other hand, they are much more bitterly hostile to any suggestion of an increase in the permitted maximum laden weight.
Higher payloads
In this conflict of opinion, events favour the commercial operator. As road space becomes more precious, there is wider recognition for the validity of his claim that higher payloads mean fewer vehicles.
At present no more than a distant cloud is the threat of a fuel shortage. If there are fewer vehicles, they will need less fuel as well as helping to close the gap between the number of drivers needed and available. When the time comes, it will no doubt also be pointed out that the fast car is a thirsty car, and that the good citizen is the one who drives at the speed where his fuel
consumption is lowest. by Janus