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Page 48
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IRE YOU SURE YOU'RE LEGAL?
you are a haulier who hires vehicles or a :ustomer who engages vehicles you may itting back in your office today blissfully rant of the fact that you are contravening koad Traffic Act 1960. Can you guaranhat your servant has not sent a vehicle to b for which it is not properly licensed? you, the hirer, check that the conditions le vehicles you hired today are adequate the work you are doing?
ection 164 of the Act lays down the Mims under which a goods vehicle may .ate. The following extract will suffice for case:— ub-section 1 reads: "Subject to the proms of this section of this Act no person I use a goods vehicle on a road for the iage of goods.
i) for hire or reward; or )) for or in connection with any trade or ness carried on by him except under a ice granted under this part of this Act. ub-section 3 reads: "For the purposes ns part of this Act the driver of a vehicle, belongs to him or is in his possession :r an agreement for hire or hire purchase oan and in any other case the person se agent or servant the driver is, shall be ned to be the person using the vehicle." !learly the haulier or the driver can be :y of an offence depending on how the cle was engaged.
Vhen a hirer engages a vehicle he can do n one of two ways:—
t) By asking the haulier to move erials from A to B; or
)) By requesting that X number of des report to his premises for instruction. the first method is employed then it is haulier's responsibility to ensure that the icle is properly licensed. This would re.e the haulier to obtain from his customer ry carefully worded instruction and there
r he would require to ensure that he cated a properly licensed vehicle to the k. Each week almost without fail we hear -man operators telling the LA that they e refused work because it is outside the is of their licence. I can believe that this s happen.
'here are also frequent cases of breaches ;onditions which come to light at such s. Last week at the Metropolitan grsing Court an applicant had his case nissed when he admitted that he had rated illegally.
-lowever, the real danger comes when the rator's business grows and he passes the )onsibility to a subordinate. It is between .m. and 7.30 a.m. that the trouble starts. rides refuse to start, drivers fail to report additional work rolls in. The traffic office omes chaotic, and the traffic supervisor omes bogged down in a morass of phone calls, instructions, complaints and ers. He delegates his authority to a further underling and eventually those vehicles which are fit and manned are in service— rolling along merrily to their appointed tasks and very possibly to break the law.
Can you say that it does not happen in your organization? Can you be sure? Mr. D. C. Heron, a South of England haulier, thought he could say so. Then one day he found himself before the magistrates at East Grinstead, and as reported in COMMERCIAL MOTOR on September 23 1966, that excursion cost him £107 14s. 6d. Mr. Heron was confronted with 322 offences concerning drivers' hours and working outside the conditions of his licence. He had sent vehicles which were on Contract A licences for the Reigate Concrete Co. Ltd. to collect solid fuel from a South Wales colliery on behalf of a Gas Board.
Mr. Heron had delegated the authority to his transport manager but he was nevertheless charged with the offence. I do not suggest that the transport manager was intentionally breaking the law, nor do I suggest that he was doing so with the owner's blessing. What I imagine may have happened was that the servant in trying to please both master and customer stepped beyond the limits of the licence.
Until now we have considered only the case of the licence holder—but what of the hirer? Before proceeding further it may be as well to return to the Act:—
"No person shall use a goods vehicle on the road for the carriage of goods.
(b) for or in connection with any trade or business carried on by him except under a licence granted under this part of this Act."
Note that the Act does not say the vehicle owner but refers to a person using a vehicle for or in connection with any trade, etc.
If I, as, say, a builders' merchant, hire a vehicle to carry goods to my instruction for or in connection with my business, I am using the vehicle. It is therefore my contention that the responsibility for the legal operation is mine as the user.
Return for a moment to the traffic office. A customer's phoned instruction is for a specified number of vehicles to report to his premises at a particular date and time. The only details normally asked for are carrying capacity and type. The haulier would not normally ask his customer what goods the vehicle was expected to carry and to what radius it would be operating. Even allowing that the hirer could provide a description of the goods it is obvious that in some degree the vehicle could be operated illegally.
However this situation does not normally arise. The hirer asks the haulier for vehicles and thereafter he, the hirer, operates the vehicles. The hirer in this case issues the driver with his instructions. Thus the driver becomes the agent or servant of the hirer and in the terms of the Act the hirer therefore becomes liable for any breach of the Act that may occur.
This being the case it is incumbent on the hirer to ensure that he is supplied with vehicles which are properly licensed for his req uirement.
For instance, one cannot send a vehicle which is licensed to carry "solid fuels except from rail sided collieries", to any. NCB pit head. The hirer must first of all check that there are no rail facilities at the pit head. This is a simple illustration but it does make the point. Before the Transport Tribunal last week the question was raised, "What is a subsidiary?" The Companies Act and the Road Traffic Act offer different definitions. This is less simple and makes another point: you cannot be too careful.
Only by careful planning, detailed and frank discussions between haulier and customer, and the education of your staff can you hope to enjoy the bliss of working within the law.
Lest my former colleagues in local and public authorities feel that they are in some way immune from the complexities of the Act, I quote sub-section 6 of section 164. "It is hereby declared, that for the purposes of this Part of this Act, the performance by a local or public authority of their functions shall be deemed to be the carrying on of a business."
Springweavers Ltd, E16. New B lic., 2 veh. (7t 18c). Small foam blocks for associated co., Foamcraft Ltd., within 150 miles.
D.R. Wain, Carford, SE6. New B lic,, 2 T. (70. Rubbish within 25 miles.
D.J. Welley, Stepney. E14, new B lic., 1 veh. (40. G.g., within 25 miles.
J. Williamson, Chadwell St. Mary, Essex. New B lie.. 1 T. (4t). Hard core, surplus soil and sand. within 21 miles. Air Shipping Agencies Ltd., EC2. 8 var., add 2 veh. G.H. Clarke, Elthem. SE9. B var., add 1 T. (St 16c). Soil fuel in bulk for South Eastern Gas Board: excavated mats. (soil, ballast and debris) during the period April 1 to September 30, for Churchill (Properties) Ltd., and J.W. Doyle and Co. Ltd., within 30 miles.
0. Hyde, W12. B var., add 2 T. (114).
W.C. Jones and Co. Ltd., Waltham Cross, Herts. B var.. add 2 T. (20t 110. Pig iron from Renishaw Iron Co. Ltd., Renishaw, to the BMCfactory at Wellingborough, Northants and to destinations within 100 miles.