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Hauliers alarmed at situation today

24th October 1975
Page 31
Page 31, 24th October 1975 — Hauliers alarmed at situation today
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

WILD MEN on the outer fringes were sabotaging the Road Haulage Association's attempts to stabilise the industry, according to the Association's chairman, Ken Hatcher, in his opening address to the RHA annual conference •in Bournemouth this week. Such people, who were beyond the pale, saw the efforts members made to work together as an opportunity to get in first at a lower price.

In a speech of almost unrelieved despondency, Mr Hatcher said that hauliers could not help being alarmed by the situation prevailing in road haulage. The volume of goods being carried was declining, the consequent com petition w a s having a depressing effect on rates, increasing numbers of hauliers were going bankrupt and the flood of new entrants seemed hardly to diminish.

There was a continuing campaign against the heavy lorry while the Government was reducing its road-building programme a n d planning further restrictions on the use of roads. All this in the shadow of a threat of nationalisation.

The Association and its members could not be accused of making no attempt to overcome these difficulties and it could and did put a case before the public. It was up against a Utopian minority, however, which though it had little real support for its aim —a wholesale attack on society—found a good stalking horse in heavy vehicles, the essential tools of an essential business.

In pressing for improvements to legislation, however, the Association found politicians largely uninterested. Despite all the efforts to awaken them, they paid much more attention to the huge deficits of the railways. Road hauliers were realists and faced the facts as they were, but there was some hope of improvement.

One possible source was the EEC directive about admission to the occupation of road haulier which, if properly administered, would be of vital importance.

The decision which the Association's national council had had to make about this directive was one of the most controversial as well as one of the more important of recent years.

Finally, the policy of recommending that the requirements should apply only to hauliers and not to owna c c aunt operators was adopted.

Stringent conditions of entry to the industry ought to mean the virtual elimination of the rogue and the maverick and make an end of insensate rate cutting while leaving sufficient competition to satisfy the customers. The higher standards and the consequent higher productivity would reduce the excuse for attacks on the heavy lorry which had been made with some justification in the be haviour of a minority of operators and drivers.

With more stable conditions, RHA members would have correspondingly more encouragement to work together. They would be able to reach agreements without being almost immediately torpedoed by other operators who might even be parties to the original agreement.

Difficulties could arise over the proposed grandfather rights; people in the business would reasonably expect to be allowed to continue. Hauliers who had been operating for three years retrospectively from about the beginning of 1978 would be allowed to continue, but reasonable evidence should be required that such an operator was genuinely in the 'hire and reward business and not entirely on ownaccount work or dabbling in the occasional return load.


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