HINTS FOR HAULIERS.
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
An Occasional Chat on Subjects and Problems of Interest to Those Who are Engaged or About to be Engaged, in Running Commercial Vehicles for a Living.
IDRAW the attention of every reader of this page to the letter which appeared in last week's Commercial Motor on page 724. It was headed " Hints for Hauliers" and signed Philip Spencer, A.M.InseMech.E. In particular do I ask those many correspondents of mine who continuously bombard me with querulous complaints concerning the charges and rates, which I advocate in these articles, and which they invariably claim are too high, to read, mark, learn, and carefully digest it. Mr. Spencer's letter, although it gives clear evidence of the fact not only that he is a new reader of my articles, but a poor reader at that, is, nevertheless, mainly sound commonsense.
I direct the attention of those readers who think my scale of charges too high to the first paragraph of this letter, wherein Mr. Spencer, who is, presumably, a man of experience in these matters, states that if I were to, carry on business on the charges I advise others to make, I should soon have a monopoly, and I recommend those readers to cogitate upon that statement, to chew it, to digest it, andto turn it over in their minds in conjunction with their daily experience of the rates current in the business to-day. Then I ask them to write such replies to it, that the Editor may publish them on . the particulax page which he sets apart for the discussion of matters of interest to readers. I ask Mr. Spencer to read such letters, if my eeaders can be persuaded to write them, and I ask him to help me in dealing With them, for I regard him, much as it may be to his.surprisei as an ally. Even if my querulous readers are too bashful to write in the manner I suggest, I still beg Mr. Spencer and others to write and write again Working Conditions that Affect Charges.
Particularly do I ask my own readers to consider the four conditions of working which are enumerated by Mr. Spencer in his letter and which, as he truly says, have a considerable bearing upon the charges which may profitably be' made. in connection with motor haulage. I beg my readers to consider these _points in conjunction with my owl-no:oft-repeated statement that the charges and rates which I publish on this page are the minimum which should be charged in • any circumstances if any reasonable profit is to be gained.
Now I must turn to Mr. Spencer himself and reply to his letter, which I do with the very greatest of pleasure, because, as I have said, I consider Mr. Spencer an ally. In the first place I desire to inform him that I have, for months, in these articles, been fighting against under-cutting of rates by hauliers, particularly by men who are doing it, unwittingly because of their ignorance of some of the essential matters in connection with account keeping. I would point out to -him that I have, almost invariubli, but not, as it happens, in the particular article to which Mr. Spencer refers, pointed out that these charges are minima and almost invariably subject to additions, owing to varying conditions under which, as he states, the haulage business is carried on. At the same time, I happen to know that a large amount of motor haulage business is being done to-day at rates less than those which I advised and, for that reason, I am extremely thankful that I am not at' present myself trying to make a living in that particular line of business.
I do not assume that a haulier is constantly at work cle nor that he is invariably fully loaded. I have frequently pointed out in these columns that the charge which I advocate must be made to the customer for every mile which the lorry runs in connection with any particular contract., whether that lorry be loaded or empty. There is a. certain allowance in the overhead charges for what is known as dead mileage, by which I mean mileage covered by the lorry from the garage to the point at which it commences to work for a. client; as, for example, the mileage which would have to he covered by a haulage contractor stationed at Balham and working for a client in Tottenham.
Naturally, if a haulier can only get work for three days a week, these rates will not pay him. At the same time, he is not justified, because his awn particular business is poor, in charging such clients as he does get, a rate which will cover his blank days.
It needs very little consideration to show the absurdity of such a proceeding, for, were it advisable, it would be most advantageous for a man to work but one day a week and so to arrange his charges that his profit throughout the week were the same as though he had worked five. Fair competition would very soon put that man out of business.
The Analogy of Taxicab Fares.
It is Mr. Spencer's third paragraph, in which he compares a taxicab with a motor lorry, that convinces me that he has not read the article to which he refers carefully, quite apart from the fact that he does not realize apparently that taxicab rates have recently undergone revision and that the charge is 6s. an hour, and not 4s., as he seems to imagine. Taxicab fares are based upon one or other of two factors— time, or mileage and the greater charge is registered by the meter. I have from time to time advocated a similar niovrroct of calculating charges by the haulage contractor, and, when better times approach, will recommend it once more. At the present time, however, owing to the fact that even reasonable minimum rates are most difficult to' obtain, I have set myself to discover a method of calculating charges which would eliminate strife and cause of dissatisfaction as between haulier and client.
The table which appeared onpage 667 of The Commercial Motor was put forward as a tentative suggestion in the hope that criticism would follow. That criticism, however, must be based upon my table and not upon some imaginary reading, as is the case in the present instance. There is no coinparison between my method and that which is used by the taxicab driver, for, while the latter must charge either according to time or according to mileage, my method puts forward a minimum charge for time, on to which must be added a minimum charge for mileage. The driver of a, taxicab using my method and covering 10 miles in an hour would charge 10s. for the mileage plus 6s. for the hour16s. in all. I would be very glad if Mr. Spencer would again read that article and would again criticise it. It was, as he probably realizes, based on 1920 conditions, and I have in mind the preparation of a neew table more widely applicable, but based on the new conditions brought into being by the now schedule of taxation and the alteration to petrol prices, which became operative on January 1st. With the remainder of his letter I do not propose to deal. It is, a.s I have indicated in the earlier paragraphs of this article, unanswerable, for it states