3 AST AND PRESENT d EMBERS of the Road Haulage Association would
Page 53
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
have been excused for feeling nostalgic at their annual luncheon last week. Those of them who -ve on the national council had previously watched a rade of five ex-chairmen, brought together to receive mmemorative badges at the hands of Mr. J. B. Mitchell, ICI was destined within a few hours to join their ranks. the two guest speakers at the luncheon one was the asent Minister of Transport, Mr. Ernest Marples, and other Lord Brabazon of Tara, who had been Minister r a time during the war. Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter, other ex-Minister, had been expected, but did not arrive. Mr. Derek -Good, who took office the following day, is rth in the line of chairmen since the R.H.A. was formed tlie end of the war. All of them are well-known figures the industry, but it might be an instructive exercise to r to place them in chronological order. Much more diffiIt a feat of memory would. be to provide, and in the rrect order, a list of British Ministers of Transport, or m of the six that have served since the war.
Reports of the luncheon so far give a strong impression the high regard that hauliers have for the present mister. This is in some ways surprising. It was almost first occasion that Mr. Marples had attended a function the R.H.A., and it may be reasonable to suppose that visits will now be more regular. In contrast to his atinued popularity with the general public, he has had ;ood deal of criticism from time to time from road users. ere were few signs of this last week and the luncheon Ly therefore mark a significant turning point.
OSSIBLY encouraged by an amiable audience, Mr. trples appears to have been in good form. It was natural Lt hauliers should listen with close attention to what their tirman said, and at times express their approval. It s not perhaps so generally expected that they would .ct in the same way to the Minister. Their reception his remarks remained friendly, even when many of them vessed disagreement with the views of operators, or inly pointed the way to difficulties lying ahead,
Nt certain moments he even appeared to be trailing coat. The withdrawal of driving licences, he said, was most powerful sanction he could impose on offenders tinst the highway law, and he intended to use it. This ternent has been generally accepted by the outside world a warning to motorists, but commercial operators could -dly avoid seeing a personal application. For the best 't of two years they have opposed the clause in the ad Traffic Bill that would enforce automatic disqualittion for three convictions in three years as a result of / out of a long list of offences, some of them nparatively minor.
Co his particular audience, what Mr. Marples said may le sounded almost like provocation. There was no great nonstration of dissent. This does not mean that !tutors have resigned themselves to the offending clause, will no longer seek to have it amended. The emphasis
t the Minister gave to the subject showed at least that criticism had made an impression and that he had felt Lecessary to emphasize his own intentions. He went out his way also to say that his plans included the fixing more rational speed limits. He may have hoped this would reassure the commercial operators whose main anxiety concerns the inclusion of speeding, whatever the circumstances, in the list of offences that must lead to the loss, of a driving licence.
On the subject of black smoke the Minister was even blunter. That the patience of the publiC was exhausted he gave as one of the reasons for the special simultaneous checks at key points, to be followed by prosecution, or prohibition, or cautionary letters, according to the severity of the offence and the extent to Which' the police co-operated. At this point there might Well have been protests, for not everyone accepts that in every case of black smoke, the fault lies necessarily with the operator or the driver of the vehicle. But the Minister was allowed to make his point without interruption.
DOUBT as to his exact meaning may have prevented comment on his further point on excessive vehicle noise. Provided a satisfactory measuring instrument can be found, he proposes to fix maximum, noise level for vehicles and incorporate them into the new Construction and Use Regulations that are being drafted, The miscreant singled out for mention by Mr. Marples was the.excessively noisy motorcyclist, but there are frequent complaints against commercial vehicles, especially the heavier types.
The reaction of commercial operators when they discover what is involved will be interesting. Whereas most drivers whose vehicles emit black smoke must have a good idea of what is happening, few of them probably are aware that they are making much noise. What they listen for is the unusual rather than the loud sound. In practice it may be found. difficult to prosecute them, or at any rate to secure a conviction, for an offence they are unaware of committing and have no easy way. of detecting. It will not even avail them to have a measuring instrument in their cab, for there the level of noise may be very different to the level of noise on the pavement.
NATURALLY, it is not possible to say whether Mr. Marples was expecting a hostile reception last week. If he was, he must have been pleasantly surprised. The explanation of the lack of criticism may be that his listeners were content to accept any unpleasant details as part of the general picture. The impression with which most of them were left was that 'he had a number of wide-ranging and, in many respects, dissimilar tasks.to carry out, but that he seemed to have them well under control, His approach was right even if at times he reached a conclusion disliked by road operators.
Such a verdict echoed what the R.H.A chairman said in introducing the Minister. Mr. Mitchell spoke of the "enthusiasm, energy and lively intelligence" that informed both the Transport Bill and the Road Traffic Bill, in spite of the blemishes that hauliers saw in the twci measures. Their sense of the past awakened by the presence of so many of their former leaders may have prompted hauliers also to compare in their own minds the present Minister with as many of his distinguished predecessors as they could remember. It would seem that in any such comparison Mr. Marples came out none too badly.