Insurance Cover for CMR Risks
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THE IRU is to study the possibility of setting up a standard insurance contract to cover risks under CMR, to be operated on the lines of the chain of guarantee at present provided under the TIR scheme. This follows the unanimous adoption of a Belgian proposal by the Council of Direction at its recent meeting in Geneva. The project is to receive the detailed study of the CMR Group of Experts and, if effective, obviously will lead to lower rates of premiums for all hauliers engaged in international transport. The CMR Group is also to be broadened in membership in order to deal with a comprehensive review of the proposed
Convention on Combined Road/Rail Transport.
Another major item considered by both Section II and the Council of Direction was the development of container traffic between North America and the major ports of Western Europe such as Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Le Havre. It was generally accepted that a crucial question was whether the USA would, in fact, ratify the TIR Convention.
The delegates were virtually unanimous in agreeing that if necessary the existing provisions of the TIR Convention should be altered to cover transatlantic container traffic. In the view of IRU it is essential that as much of this traffic as possible should be captured by road haulage whose interests would be severely prejudiced if each shipping company were obliged to make a separate contract with IRU to cover its TIR arrangements for this type of container.
In view of the big potentiality of this class of container traffic, Section II resolved to appoint a special working party to study all aspects of these developments, with particular reference to possible amendments to the TIR Convention so as to include containers that do not travel the whole of the journey on a wheeled base.
Among membership applications approved by the Council were an application for full membership of Sections 1 and II from the Czechoslovakian Association of International Road Transport (CESMAD), and for associate membership from Thoresen Car Ferries Ltd., Southampton.