Have the checks really been of any use P
Page 62
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
p' RESUMABLY Mr. Ernest Marples must have anticipated the effect of his well-publicized programme of special checks on heavy goods vehicles. The critics who for a variety of expressed and concealed reasons wish to see traffic transferred from road to rail have found valuable ammunition in the results of the checks. The motoring public imagine they have been given official justification for saying that lorries should not be allowed on the roads. Protests are likely, if anything, to become more and more vociferous as the programme continues.
Have the cheeks really been of any use? It is possible that the question may be overlooked. The checks form part of the general campaign to improve road safety and whoever casts doubts on them can too easily be made to seem callous. This applies particularly to the goods vehicle operators and drivers who would have the most interest in finding a correct answer to the question. • Representatives of operators have not hesitated to make known their concern at the reports of the checks and at the harmful effect on the image of the road transport industry and the lorry driver. The suggestion from the Minister has been welcomed that the associations whose members are involved should meet for a discussion on the problem Their willingness was expected, was in fact inevitable. They may still have a suspicion that there could be better ways of dealing with the menace of the defective goods vehicle.
The checks were not needed to establish that the image is bad. The Minister expressed his anxiety about the deteriorating image before the checks began and they were certainly not calculated to bring about an improvement. The general statistical picture was also known in advance. Each year the reports of the Licensing Authorities have contained an analysis of checks all over the country. The comparison between the number of vehicles inspected and the number of prohibitions has been available for anybody who cared to make it.
Checks Will Prove Nothing If the comparison is at all different in the latest series of checks, the explanation may lie in sonic difference in the conditions. More likely than not the results will be much the same as usual. They will prove nothing and it is difficult to understand what, if anything, they were expected to prove. Neither is it to be expected that a concentrated series of checks over a limited period would lead to any appreciable permanent or even temporary improvement in the general standard of heavy goods vehicles.
Ample warning was given that the tests would take place. The inference from information so far available is that operators either took no notice or did not receive the message. This must obviously have been true in some, but not necessarily in all, cases. Thousands of sensible operators may have heeded the warning and taken extra
(-1 2
precautions. Ile reason why their efforts cannot be detected in the statistics may be that their vehicles would in any case not attract the strictures of an examiner.
To the extent that this is true the checks have had exactly the reverse effect to that intended. The Minister, joining the chorus even of those people who have little goodwill towards the heavy goods vehicle, has emphasized the high standards and satisfactory behaviour of the majority of operators. He has defined his target as a maniac fringe" of dubious operators who were playing the major part in getting the road transport industry a bad name.
News Travels Fast These are the very operators who are most unlikely to have heard about the checks in advance—although news travels fast, and once a road block is established the vehicle counts on alternative routes show a sharp increase. In any event, the undesirable operator is not such a maniac as to believe that good maintenance is unimportant. He neglects his vehicles because he cannot afford repairs or replacements, because he has no time to put defects right, perhaps because he has no technical knowledge and does not realize that there is anything wrong. The risk that his vehicle will be caught in a spot check is the least of his worries.
Proposals for regular testing of all commercial vehicles, Once the difficulties can be overcome, should be one effective way of dealing with the bad operator. He cannot trust to luck that he will evade detection. The good operator on the whole will welcome the inspections and there are no signs that fundamental objections will be raised by the transport associations. With such a prospect before him it becomes even more difficult to understand why the Minister should have mobilized his enforcement staff for what has been somewhat dramatically described as a blitz.
The operation could have its disadvantages. The motorist can be too easily persuaded that he is not at fault and that the road accident problem could virtually be solved by suppressing the heavy goods vehicle. He is certainly not discouraged from thinking this by much of the Press comment. It gives him the excuse of transferring the burden of guilt elsewhere and it reinforces his dislike for the lorry and his exasperation when he is held up by slower moving vehicles or by congestion for which it is tempting to lay the blame on the largest obstacle visible on the road through his windscreen.
Mr. Marples might perhaps have made it even clearer than he did that the favourable image once held of the lorry driver was in almost direct contrast to the image of other road users and particularly of the average motorist. The maniac fringe is not restricted to people in charge of goods vehicles. It runs like a blight through the whole range of motor vehicle drivers. The burden of guilt cannot be so easily shrugged off, especially when it is remembered that the lorry driver still has the best accident record of all.