bird's eye
Page 48
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
view by the Hawk
• Truth will out
"Hauliers, for obvious reasons, are inveterate overloaders. The de facto standard axle load on Community roads is probably nearer 15 tons than 10 or 13. Until better policing methods have been established, disputing over tons per axle may be little more relevant than debating over angels per needle points."
So says Christopher Matthews, in an article speculating on the likely size of Eurolorries in the January issue of European Community. British hauliers will not need much persuasion that the author's views are correct, but if so, what price free competition? We'd like to know if all the guff about "transparent rates" now coming from Brussels will cope with the overloading problem.
There is a frail wooden bridge in Ostend with a 2-ton weight limit which is often used by Continental coach tour operators as a short cut. In England we are much more law-abiding. For 2+ years passengers on a Bourne End bus service have had to get out and walk in all weathers to allow their bus (weighing over 8 tons) to proceed over a sub-standard bridge with a safe capacity of 6 tons.
When aggrieved passengers queried this overloading with the county council surveyor they were told that since only two wheels went over the weak place on the bridge at a precise moment in time it was not really dangerous. Even a lone passenger must walk, nevertheless!
• On the outside
While Britain is in the throes of entering the EEC, some other countries are beginning to get a little alarmed at being left outside the tariff wall of the Community. I've been rather surprised that we have heard so little on the subject from Sweden, considering that Denmark and Norway are all set to become EEC members as well as the UK, but I gather that there's been quite a campaign by the Swedish motor industry to get fellow Swedes interested in joining.
Even allowing for the fact that some Swedish makers have assembly plants in EEC countries, if Sweden were left outside she could find the tariff wall a big hurdle for trucks and buses as well as cars.
The whole issue is raised, with plenty of facts and figures, in the 1971 edition of Motor Traffic in Sweden, just published by the Association of Swedish Automobile Manufacturers and Wholesalers, through AB Bilstatistik, Box 5514, S-114 85 Stockholm. This little book belies its modest, and rather dull, title, every year by including a mass of facts and figures about European — and even world — motor vehicle production, export, import and use.
Perhaps even more topical, the book lists the mileages of road in the Swedish provinces which are limited to certain lower maximum axle weights — and it does so in a matter-of-fact way which suggests that the problems of designated routes are not so great as has been suggested in Britain. Not that the Swedes have our enormous complex of roads.
Other little gems of information include a comparison of hauliers' road freight income in Sweden over the past 10 years (it just about doubled) and a size-by-size analysis of Sweden's 36,500 haulage trucks and 16,100 trailers.
Another table shows that there are only 14 hauliers in Sweden with more than 60 trucks, but the number with one truck has risen from 8115 in 1957 to 13,424 in 1970.
• Fifty up
They tell a nice story about William Cooper and Sons (Carriers) Ltd, of Prestatyn, North Wales — to the effect that the company began simply because a Bolton family decided to move to their favourite holiday resort. That was over 50 years ago, when mill engineer Thomas Cooper moved his family to the seaside and started a bike shop. They soon took over a garage and it is recalled what rejoicing there was on the day that they installed their first petrol pump — there was only one other between Prestatyn and Chester at the time.
It all sounds rather remote now, but the memories are being recalled because Cooper and Sons are just celebrating their 50th anniversary — though now as a thriving parcels carrier with daily services to Liverpool and Manchester. A far cry from the days when, in the furniture removals business which they have long since abandoned, they had to send a photograph of an articulated pantechnicon to the LA when making an application for a licence, as no one could visualize what a furniture van artic might look like!