Farmers Who Filch Bus Traffic
Page 27
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THE practice of carrying fare-paying passengers in goods vehicles, in connection with agricultural loads, is wider than many persons imagine, and public-service-vehicle operators in certain market districts are finding that their undertakings are being detrimentally affected. This matter was the subject of an action in the High Court a short time ago, an editorial comment upon the decision appearing in our issue dated November 24. The Court found that, if a charge was made for the carriage of goods, the owners of which accompanied them, the charge was equivalent to a fare per passenger.
It may not be generally understood that the transport of fare-paying passengers in a lorry requires the authorization of the licences applicable, to a public-service vehicle. Again, insurance has an important bearing on the subject, for if the policy does not provide for the carriage of passengers, whether they pay fares or not, the vehicle is, while engaged on such work, being operated without an effective policy of insurance. Even if the insurance arrangements cover the conveyance of passengers, the company will, no doubt, place a strict limit on the number of persons that may be carried at one time on a motor goods vehicle.
Police action in this matter has lately been intensified, and a new method of evading unwelcome attention from this source has been brought to our notice. There is, we are informed, a growing practice amongst farmers of carrying for reward, in private cars, the owners of stock and agricultural produce which is being transported to market in the farmers' own lorries. The employment of private cars for the conveyance of passengers at separate fares, and without roadservice licences, has been a feature of " contractcarriage " litigation, and there is no doubt that the authorities will take further steps to abolish this method of filching the rightful business of bus operators.
The public-service-vehicle owner caters for the transport of passengers, and it is unfair that his traffic should be taken by others who have their own means for livelihood. especially in cases where the bus operator is not m a position to corn: pete. When the latter engages in the transport of livestock and takes to farming as a. side-line, there may be some reasonable excuse for the appropriation of his legitimate trade.