THC FREIGHT ASSOCIATION SECRETARY WARNS:
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Operators must right image or risk unbearable pains
NO industry could afford in the long run to operate under stigma in the public view. To persist with a smudged image under current reflexes was to incur the risks of restrictions, pains and penalties which could make the operator's life so burdensome that it would not be worthwhile.
So said Mr. E. G. Marsden, secretary and chief officer of the THC Freight Association Ltd., in a paper, "How Fair is My Image", he presented to the Institute of Transport at Oxford on Monday.
Referring to the draft Road Safety Bill, he asked: "Is it fair to assume that had the image been right no Government would have imposed so severe a rise in penalties over so wide and varying a range of offences?"
The remedy was in operators' own hands. "And being members . . in what has now become 'the lifeline of the land', it is essential that whenever possible and in whatever ways are open, operators should exert their full influence to ensure the integrity of their calling and to counter the prejudice which . .. undoubtedly exists against the lorry."
Mr. Marsden stressed the importance of a fair image on recruitment: the best men would not be attracted to any service which did not stand high in public esteem.
Every operator should persist in efforts to build up the calibre of his drivers.
"Every operator of any size should encourage his drivers to enter for the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition, sponsored by COMMERCIAL MOTOR. and should enter his men for the Safe Driving Competition organized by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
"It must be remembered that once the lorry driver leaves the depot he is completely on his own until he arrives at his destination."
The "assets" were, potentially at any rate, good.
"Yet looking oneself in the face . .. with complete honesty and candour, can any haulier be satisfied that his public image today is fair? The frank answer must, 1 am afraid, be in the negative."
Mr. Marsden suggested that the essential foundation for an overall good image lay in sound service, complete integrity in operations and everything connected with them, and good personal relations over the widest possible field.
Given that foundation, operators could leave it to their national organizations' public relations specialists to build the right image.