Is it Becoming Normal (Conf)User ?
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THE article "Normal User—The Common Enemy,' by
"The Tyke," in your issue dated January 31, reinforces the rapidly gaining viewpoint that the licensing system as it stands, is gradually sinking into a morass of red tape and technicalities, and that a review is necessary to sift out anomalies which have arisen in the past five years.
No one suggests that the cause lies with the Licensing Authorities or even with the Transport Tribunal, who interpret each case in the light of regulations laid down and precedent. The smear campaign of "illegal working," carried on inside and outside Parliament, has further bedevilled the situation. In fact, the existing set-up provides ammunition for those exponents of re-nationalization to present a reasoned case for taking over the free-enterprise part of road haulage, if and when opportunity offers, and at the same time dispense with the C-hiring margin. Yet those same exponents were initially the source of widespread abuse of the C-hiring margin, which began with nationalization in 1947. The 1953 Act should have closed this loophole of loose wording, although retaining the genuine usage by C-licence holders, for whom it was originally intended.
I have always understood that any persistent and flagrant infringement of licence conditions, made that licence liable to suspension or revocation, in whole or in part, or culminated in police-court charges. A minorbreach might be followed by a warning as to future conduct, and that conduct carefully scrutinized for a period afterwards. Yet numerous cases have been reported where the "use and wont" of perhaps years of pseudo working or gross breach of conditions are made the basis of a licence application, in some instances successful, and with no corrective action, which lies within his power, being taken by the Authority.
That this must be galling to the vast majority of hauliers who keep within the law is understandable, but in principle it is encouraging a return to the "free-for-alt" days which existed prior to 1933. It is a true maxim that a barrel of good apples will not make one bad apple better, but the one bad apple can affect the others extensively. It also makes a mockery of enforcement, which should have kept illegal working in check, or set some salutary examples.
Here again the Licensing Authorities cannot be faulted, as obviously full enforcement has been outside their physical capacity to operate—a point which the "shrewd merchants" were not slow to realize. But what an indictment, which casts an unwarranted slur on the entire haulage industry, when it is necessary to turn large numbers of officers over to checking licence infringements by a small percentage of the total.
"The Tyke," discussing "normal user," quoted Mr. Hubert Hull, president of the Tribunal:—" If during the currency of the licence the operator changes his operations --then the operator places himself in peril. He has obtained the licence on proof of need—and if he changes this he should inform the Licensing Authority. He should surrender his licence, and re-apply and prove need for the new operations._ If not he will be subject to proof on renewal."
At the end of December, 1954, when the 25-mile restriction was erased, there were some 40,000 current A-licensed vehicles not nationalized. The figure included an unspecified number, which was small, on excluded traffics and holding permits, which were allowed to operate outside the limit. Many of those licence holders had their normal a34 user forcibly disturbed, through no fault of their own when the limit was imposed, and at the beginning of 1955 resumed their pre-1948 operations. Yet, according to my reading of the Tribunal ruling, those licences should have been surrendered at the end of 1954 and fresh applications made with proof of need. No official directive or warning on procedure was issued at this juncture, presumably because it was unnecessary. Had mass applications been made then for variations and consequent hearings, the Traffic Courts would have jammed.
If the Tribunal ruling is followed literally and increasingly pressed by railway objections, some hauliers may be liable to suffer because of the 1947 Act. Licences renewed during 1953 and 1954 come up again for renewal this year and in 1959.. The five-year period is made up of two years of restriction and the balance of pre-1948 working, which, splitting hairs, is a change of normal user. Will .objectors. regard 1953 and 1954 as abnormal? An unfavourable ruling here would be the start of pushing back inside the 25-mile radius a large number of A-licensed vehicles.
Licence applications have been recorded for working to one or two customers. Normal user, as it now appears to stand, places such an applicant at the mercy of one or perhaps two customers. The latter, at their whim, can go elsewhere, but the haulier cannot, unless he throws himself on the mercy of the Traffic Court, more or less as a newcomer. Therefore the customer can, in the matter of delivery times, turn the screw and the haulier is in the cleft stick of breaking the legal-hours requirements or losing his meal ticket. That is.one point which is seldom aired when the working of excessive hours is discussed, and where stipulated delivery times are not possible of accomplishment within the law. The reputable haulier sticks to his last, the weaker falls by the wayside.
Glasgow, W.4. ARTHUR R. WILSON, M.I.R.T.E.
Signalling by a Vehicle's Lights
REGARDING the letter from G. W. Knight concerning a driver who switched his side lights on and off, the reply by J. Sharkey on February 7, and your editorial comment on this, I would say that the signals were definitely meant for traffic following the vehicle in question..
Had the signals been directed at oncoming traffic, the headlights would have been used.
As to what the signal in question meant, I would say that the van driver had received some encouragement to overtake, mistakenly or otherwise, and having done so, he wished to convey his thanks to the driver. who had tried to help him. At the same time; I have no doubt that the incident was an example of "hogging."
Felixstowe. A. G. SALMON,
I WAS interested in the letters from Mr. Knight and Mr. I Sharkey, and I am inclined to agree rdith what the latter wrote. I am employed on trunk work between Yorkshire and London, and I find that the flashing of tail tights is a very common signal for " I am slowing down or pulling in." If a driver intends to go through, he will put on his headlights for several seconds, but not flash them.
Braking lights are not standard equipment, and although the vehicle that I drive is equipped with them, the trailer I haul is not, so I have to follow the practice described.
Dewsbury, Yorks. D. G. DEARNLEY.