Golden Slumbers
Page 42
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—Seem to Have Kissed the Eyes of One Provision in the Transport Act, Which Would, If Enforced, Have Cost Private-enterprise Hauliers £250,000
CURIOUS students of minor points of law may have wondered what has happened to one of the less important provisions of the Transport Act. Part III Of the Act has, for the right audience, all the ingredients of the gloomiest of three-act tragedies, except that the final scene, • the denouement, has not, perhaps, the adequate classical tragic force. After the murderous first Act (Sections 39 to 5I, dealing with acquisitions), and the long-drawn-out agony of the second Act (Sections 52 to 55, covering the 25-mile limit), Act III degenerates into'a series of miscellaneous provisionS. One such provision, Section. 61, itemizes points on which. the Minister May make regulations. Of these points, Section 61 (d) is concerned with "the means by which vehicles are to be identified, whether by plates, marks or otherwise, as being vehicles authorized to be used for the carriage of goods for hire or reward under a permit and by which the area within which vehicles may be used for that purpose (whether under any such permit or not) is to be ascertainable." In view of this, one would have expected the issue, before the appointed day, of instructions for the corralfirm and branding of every haulage vehicle operating under free enterprise, unless engaged in the carriage of excluded traffics February I has come and gone. On no vehicles are there to be found "plates, marks or otherwise,from which it may be inferred that for once a Government department has chosen not to exercise its option to make a regulation.
Has, in fact, any action been taken or proposed on Section 61 (d)? It is not easy to find out. The Ministry of Transport haS:made no statement The matter -does:. not come 'Within the -jurisdiction of the Road Haulage .. Executive,'Which -cannot therefore be...expected to know anything about it Hauliers, for (he most part ,.are just: as much in the dark. . One suspects that few of them, , in their reading, of the Transport Act,-have ever reached Section 61 The 40s and the 50s contain horrors enough without going any farther.
The Anonymous Informed If the inquiry be pushed with sufficient pertinacity, one or two facts will ultimately emerge. There are anonymous gentlemen at Berkeley Square House who seem to have sonic information on the matter, and there may be one or two representatives of the road haulage industry also in the know The story they could tell, were they so inclined, should be interesting.
Enough is known to be able to say that, at one stage. regulations actually existed in draft form. An opportunity was taken to put forward objections, as a result of which it was agreed not to pursue the matter. Tribute is due to all concerned for the tactful and sensible way in which this particular gritty fragment of the monolithic Transport Act has been flaked off and consigned to oblivion.
R8 Had regulations been made, thousands of vehicles would have-been compelled to carry some distinguishing mark to show in which part of the country they were based. The mark would most likely have been the name of a town or county. If it were required to be easily seen, it would have occupied a space measuring anything up to 4 ft. in length on each side of each vehicle.
There would have been numerous protests against regulations of this kind. Hauliers under B licences have always been limited as to distance and as to the goods they may carry. They are under no obligation to put up placards announcing their shortcomings. There is no reason why what has so far not been found necessary M the case of B licensees should be inflicted as an additional burden on every haulier outside the nationalized undertaking.
Branding Smokers
Enforcement officers are entitled to inspect .Identity Certificates: Vehicle passes or .job permits Will at once show to What extent journeys outside the 25-mile limit are permitted. Identification plates, besides being superfluous, would mean that hauliers travelling legitimately for a long way from their base would be continually stopped to explain, for example, why a carrier from Southampton dared to show his face in Norwich.
The only possible inference from the regulations must have been that every haulier is automatically suspected of the intention of breaking them. The equivalent in ordinary life would be the branding of all smokers with the letters "CIGS" to prevent them from practising their. strange vice in la non-smoking compartment. Hauliers sufficiently .anxious to carry goods beyond the lawful distancewOuld find some way or other to circumvent the regulations, possibly by changing the plates at each Stage, rather like the destination indicator on a bus.
The sole beneficiaries of the regulations would have been the manufacturers supplying the plates, who for a period would have been kept busy. The towns whose names were to be inscribed on the plates may or may not have felt that there was some advertising value in the fact that a Brick from Brixton, or a Wag from Wigan, was compelled to publicize his inability to venture far beyond the salubrious precincts of his native place. Any town not on the list would no doubt have lodged a vigorous protest.
On the whole, few people are likely to regret that the regulations never saw the light of day. There is praise for the men at the .Ministry who, faced with the temptation of making a newregulation, had the sanity and strength of mind to say: No! There is praise for the hauliers' representatives who so convincingly marshalled the arguments against the regulations. May Section 61(d) sleep soundly and forever. For hauliers it is a golden slumber. The plates might have been a fairly expensive matter, and the interment • ofthe regulations has possibly saved Operators in the aggregate something like £250,000.