40 TONNES IS MONEY WASTED
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RECENTLY we have seen the call Ibr a 40-tonne weight limit to replace the present 38 tonnes. One local radio station (Chiltern) asked me as present chairman of the sub area of RHA what my opinions were.
1 found myself being very "antiincrease", for several good reasons.
• Assuming 40 tonnes is the limit, Road Fund licence will cost a great deal more, and after ;iny mechanical improvements are made to vehicles, probably 1.52 tonnes is the maximum payload increase.
• Customers will, of course, expect the rate per tonne to conic down, even if the haulier spends many thousands of pounds to re-equip, and the average haulier would be better off putting his money in a building society account, certainly with far less risk.
• 1 run a handful of vehicles — none over 16.2 tonnes gross — and for obvious personal reasons would prefer the gross weight limits to come down rather than go up. meaning more lorries of lower weights being needed. The large loads over long distances have no place on our overcrowded roads, and can be carried better by our rail network for the greater part of their journey.
The opening of the M25 round to the M23 has knocked a good hour oil the time to the south coast ports, and once the section from the Al M to Watford is complete, journey times will further reduce and will mean no longer having to have an "early start' to get through London traffic to enable the job to be done within legal hours.
1 think the answer to hauliers being unable to raise rates per tonne will be CO press for even more road improvements, to enable the vehicles' existing journey times to be improved and productivity improved, with less strain on the driver as a bonus.
I have spent the holiday period, in part anyway, on revising the rates to charge for the coming year, to pay the drivers their wages increase, and shall no doubt find in the weeks to come the usual reply from customers that "Joe Bloggs up die mad hasn't put his rate up so why should 1 give you work?"
My reply is: "Does your wife refuse to buy the week's groceries and the Sunday joint just because prices have gone up? No, she has bought as usual and is asking you for more housekeeping money."
We must be the same, and pass on all of our cost increases to our customers as inflation is ever present, and a .:50 job in 1985 is not worth doing for GO in 1986, bur should be S:55 — more if the wife
wants a holiday abroad this year instead of a week at Great Yarmouth!
Finally, may 1 wish you a peaceful New Year and to all hauliers a far more prosperous one than '85.
A. R. Goss Sandy Bt#rdsintc.