Road Transport's Claim for Justice
Page 41
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THE persecution of drivers and owners of motor vehicles is as old as the industry itself, being in evidence when steam traction engines began to be commonly used on the highways last century, but latterly this matter has become so serious that operators will be well advised to give it their earnest consideration.
For some years certain sections of road-vehicle users have been, to some extent, a menace to each other, and legislation has been introduced to control the industry. This new legislation, being both oppressive and excessive and capable of being utilized to the serious disadvantage of the industry by unseen forces directed from a background of magnates interested in rival forms of transport, calls for extreme vigilance.
The police system itself is not the real menace, but being a force of human beings with all the failings, together with the qualities of the human race, it is capable of being used to curtail the activities of another, which may not necessarily consist of "Social Undesirables."
Can a defendant in a motoring case hope for justice at a court of summary jurisdiction at which the presiding magistrate is an important railway magnate? Such courts have a notorious reputation in certain districts, and real hardships are being inflicted on British citizens by magistrates who are exercising their powers to the utmost.
Impartial Justice Essential.
Drunken drivers and others of that ilk deserve to lose their livelihood, and although leniency is sometimes shown to defendants many men are convicted of breaches which they have never committed. The necessity of finding means for the dispensation of impartial justice during motor cases is very urgent, and human nature being what it is, it is unfair to all parties to allow any suspicion of bias. Magistrates who may be capable of dealing with cases such as wife-beating or the boy who was caught in the orchard, are not necessarily qualified to deal with the complexity of prosecutions arising from breaches of, say, the regulations governing the use and construction of motor vehicles. Modern merchandize of huge dimensions is frequently "out of gauge "for the railways, and the only method of transport is by road, but owing to ignorance of the real position of transport facilities the ordinary layman, when seeing some abnormal load passing, remarks that "Such things ought never to be on the road."
Road Transport's Strong Position.
If motors are expected permanently to subscribe the whole cost of road maintenance it is logical to assume that those contributing this taxation will hope ultimately to have the "lion's share" of the control of the roads, instead of having to use them on sufferance, as at present.
The number of men employed by the road-transport industry is given as 1,257,000, whilst the four railway groups find employment for 673,000, which leaves a majority of 584,000 employed by road interests. Also, it must not be forgotten that almost everything has to travel on the roads for some part' of its journey, and since important services (gas, electricity, drains, etc.) are carried under the surface of roads everybody benefits directly from the provision and maintenance of the roadways.
A point on which the writer has already touched, when addressing a meeting of members of the Road Haulage Association, concerns the danger of taxing and curtailing motor traffic to the point which would lead to a reversion to the use of horses in large numbers. Although motor exhaust gases can be harmful, it does not require much concentration to visualize the danger to health if horses were to be used in sufficient numbers to cope with the modern tonnage requirements, which must of necessity come on to the roads. Hygienically, we are better without any draught animals in congested towns and cities, especially in hot weather; it would be better to bring down the cost of operating motor vehicles to a point as low as, or lower than, that resulting from the use of any beast of burden, and then to prohibit the latter by law.
At present forces are at work to place further impositions on motor vehicles and thus artificially to in crease operating costs ; but the industry must provide the funds for fighting such opposition, and by propaganda it must acquaint the ordinary individual of the real position, so that he is no longer an antagonist due to ignorance.
There is much work to be done before drivers will be able to go about their duties as free from the undesirable attentions of the police as the drivers of railway locomotives are to-day.
Progress may mean that the main highways will, perhaps at a fairly early date, be up roads and down roads on which drivers will be concerned only with the overtaking of the vehicle ahead instead of enduring the strain caused by the passing of vehicles from the opposite direction at an awkward moment. Roadwidening is useless, except as a palliative in the approach to the ideal of fast travel free from accident.
The road industry has been called a "young, healthy baby," whilst it is conceded that the railway industry is old, but we need not adopt any inferiority complex on that account, for the whole railway, industry owes its existence to mere chance.
The Heritage of the Road.
The engineer brought forth the road locomotive first, but the roads of the period, not having suitable foundations or surfaces, were unequal to the strain of supporting them, the birth of power-driven machines for road use was premature.
There would have been no railway system as in use to-day had as much effort been spent on prividing suitable roads as was employed in perfecting the tram roads laid for horse-drawn colliery tubs, which appealed to engineers of those days as an outlet for the utility of their invention when earth road surfaces were found to give so much trouble.
If roadways finally supplant the railways the former will be acquiring only their rightful heritage.