Scottish operators shy of testing
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• According to Mr. C. C. Toyne, superintending engineer, Ministry of Transport, Scotland has not a good record in the MoT testing and plating scheme. At the Bishopbriggs station only one-third of the vehicles due to be tested have reported, while at Livingstone the figure is two-thirds. Mr. Toyne told a joint meeting of the Industrial Transport Association, Road Haulage Association, the Freight Transport Association, Institute of Traffic Administration and the Fife and District Tipper Association in Edinburgh last week that the attitude appeared to be: "We'll wait until we get caught and then pay the fine".
The meeting, sponsored by the ITA Forth division, attracted an audience' of 260. The speaker suggested that those who were intentionally missing the test would be traced when operators' licences came into force later in the year. He pointed out that of those applying, 10 per cent were being returned because the application form was incomplete and a further 10 per cent were making application without enclosing the test fee.
Mr. Toyne agreed that the application form required clarification in some respects and he suggested that this might take place at the next printing of the forms. He told the operators that if they disagreed with the plated weight issued at the test station they should take the matter up with the Swansea office. Trailers, he said, should be clearly marked with the identification number issued by the Ministry before they were sent for test.
Referring to vehicle cleanliness Mr. Toyne told the meeting that of all vehicles presented for test only five per cent had been refused. He assured the audience that testing station staffs would be reasonable in this respect and would make allowances for adverse weather conditions. He warned that when an application was made the actual measurements of the vehicle should be quoted and not those taken from the manufacturer's specification.
One operator asked why local authority refuse collection vehicles should have been put on the exemption list. Mr. Toyne said that this was because they operated within a strictly local area, but they would probably be taken off the list when the present series of tests was running satisfactorily.
The problem of loading a vehicle to its maximum capacity before the test was posed by the operator of a bakery delivery fleet, whose vehicles had no load access except through the cab, preventing use of the load simulator to produce adequate wheel adhesion on brake test. He said that to load the vehicle with sacks of sand, as was the accepted practice, put him in danger of breaking hygiene legislation. The speaker agreed that this was a problem which still had to be overcome but that the Ministry was considering the possibility of introducing a load-simulating device which could be operated on the axle of the vehicle from the inspection pit.