MOTOR COACHES AND PUBLIC COMPLAINTS.
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The Failure of a Few Owners to Keep to Contracts Results in a I Stigma on the Trade in General.
IN view of the great development that has taken place, during the past two years in motor coaching it is not surprising that, although in the majority of
cases services are being run on :thoroughly well-organized lines, there should be complaints of slackness here and there. Many of these complaints
are to the effect that, in an endeavour to meet the rush demand for excursion coaches, organizers are employing inferior machines which are likely not only to bring discredit to the individual owners, but to the whole motor-coaching
trade in general. In particular, the large number of these old vehicles which are brought into use in the London area on the Saturday preceding the August Bank Holiday, when very wet weather was experienced, was the cause of many critical comments in the daily Press.
Another point which we would stress In connection with road transport workis that bookings and undertakings must be fulfilled. This applies to the time of starting, as well as to the use of the type of vehicle as arranged in the contract. On the first point, when a trip or excursion is scheduled to „start at a certain hour, the excursionists, who, although there may be one or two laggards, usually reach the starting place punctually, do not like being hindered and worried owing to the late arrival of the vehicle, or vehicles. This lateness, moreover, gives rise to many suggestions among the public that motor coaches are unreliable—a most unfair contention.
Then again, complaints are rife that the vehicles actually sent to convey excursion parties are not equal in seating capacity anti comfort to those arranged for by the contracting parties. We know of one case in South London where the account rendered is being disputed on this score, a number of lowloading coaches having been promised to convey a party of crippled children, whereas the vehicles sent were of a mixed type, showing great diversity in seating capacity and all with high steps to the bodies. Disputes of this kind are disastrous to fleet owners, for, in whatever manner they may be settled, it is safe to say that the organizers of the outing concerned will look elsewhere for their transport facilities when next they are in need of such seivices.