THE MENACE OF OVERLOADING.
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Horse Drivers' Hostility Still a Hindrance.
THE ENGINEER who is responsible for the running of a mixed fleet of horse and motoa vehicles is rather apt, in these days, to lose sight of the fact that, in many cases, the horse drivers' dislike of the newer form of transport is still almost as strong as ever it his been. It cannot be expected, even at the present time, when mechanical transport has come into its own, that the horse driver should regard the motor vehicle as anything but a menace to his occupation. That, of course, is an absurd attitude for the helmsman. of the " hairy " to adopt, because no man can pit himself against the powers of progress, but it is, after all, a very natural position for a, man of limited outl ok to take up, and due allowance must be made.
Nevertheless, there are occasio s when this prejudice can assume a form which c nnot be permitted for one moment, and recent expe iences have shown the need for the most strict observation to be maintained in the running of a mixed fleet of horse and motor vehicles. It was, only recently, brought :go our notice by the manager of such a mixed transport concern that it is tluite possible fer this prejudice to assume dimensions and an aspect which render the possibility of efficient and economical transportation' an impossibility. The gentleman in question was run.ning a fleet comprised approximately of an equal number of pairhorse and, of motor vans of well-known American make. A careful economist, he was endeavouring to reduce his running costs to the lowest possible figure and, for that purpose, instituted a careful analysis of figures and carried out, himself, a most rigorous inspection of the transport scheme at work and 'kept it under observation for an extended period. Though at heart a motor enthusiast, the results of his inquiry " made him to think furiously," and caused him no little disappointment, for the niotorvan was coming out on costa a very bad second to the horsed vehicle, when employed upon work on which it should have shown up to advantage. Probing more deeply into the problem, he found that the
running repair costs of the motors were enormous. Not only was the expense of labour and material on this repair work mounting to an exorbitant figure, but the running time wasted while the vans were of the road was resulting in a dead loss, which the comparative efficiency of the horsed service compensated for but barely. For a, time, he was puzzled and thought himself fairly " up against it." Being a resourceful man, however, he took it upon himself to go further into the matter and, personally, to check the loads with which the motor vans were being filled, The result wag fairly astounding. The vans were being nearly double laden. They were carrying at least 70 per•cent. more load than they had been designed to undertake. Failures were frequent and severe, and running costa were soaring up and. up in consequence. His discovery led him to make further and more delicate inquiries, -with the result that eventually he probed the matter to the root.
The horse drivers were bringing heavy pressure to bear on the motor men to overload their vans and, for some extraordinary reason, the latter were, wittingly or unwittingly, contributing in this way to the frequent failure of their vehicles. It may have been that they were on their mettle and wished to show how much their vans could do ;.but, in,, any case, the practice was ruling out the motor as an efficient mode cif transport. This is no imaginary story, concocted in order to cast a slur on the integrity of the horse driver or of the motor men • it isa fact. There appears to have been a calculated conspiracy to crab the petrol van.
Now, it is far from our intention to suggest that the drivers of horse-driven vehicles, as a class, are either short-sighted or so lacking in honesty as to take up such a line of action, but this occurrence cannot be passed by. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and we can only point the moral that it may pay to keep an open eye for indications of this attitude, to which our attention has quite recently been drawn in an instance which, -we sincerely hope, is an isolated one.