Answers to Queries.
Page 28
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Good Road Maps of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
[3011] (Distributor).—You will be able to obtain large wall-maps, showing the roads, one for each. of the usual divisions of the Kingdbm, from Messrs. George Philip and Son, 32, Fleet Street, E.C.
The Binks Carburetters and "Anti-pinkrs."
[3012] (Brewers).—The address was given on our "Answers to Queries " page in the issue of the 15th June. It is :—C. Binks, Ltd., Phenix Works, Church Street, Eccles, Manchester. The royalties vary from 21 10s. to 22 per engine for the carburetter with vaporizer, and are 15. per cylinder for the " Antipinker " only. • We believe that auxiliary manufacture in London has been arranged.
Are Hackney-carriage Licences Rcquir._d for Motorvans [3013] (Hire Business).—There is no occasion, so long as none of your vans is carrying passengers, for any licence to be taken out, other than the annual one for each driver. A hackney-carriage licence is limited to vehicles which are hired for the conveyance of passengers. You mast give instructions to your drivers that they are at no time to carry passengers, neither for a consideration nor out of friendship. The vehicles must strictly be used solely in the course of trade or husbandry. If any of the vehicles are equipped with extra, seats, we advise you to have these seats removed, so that the temptation to carry passengers may no longer exist.
Country Motorcab (Private Hire) Costs.
[3014] (South).—So many factors are now abnormal, as regards charges for consumable supplies of all kinds, material and labour, that we should hesitate to put down a definite figure for the cost of a motorcab per mile without further specific information about the local circumstances. You will find an article which should be of help to you in "The Motor" of the 30th May. Those costs are laid down for a car of slightly higher h.p. than the average motorcab, but we consider that they are applicable, having regard to the harder use which a motorcab usually gets in service. They require correction under the headings of licences and petrol, but otherwise appear to us to be applicable, if the motorcabs about which you are inquiring are new. Depreciation, of course, will not be iso high as 2d. a mile, if you have bought the cabs second-hand. That rate applies to a car costing, say, 2580. The article will show you the necessity for knowing the intended mileage per annum, before a definite statement can be made as to costs per mile run. We have not examined the question of motorcab costs in THE ComwmaerAL MoTOR for some years, and the issues in which we have referred to them are all out of print. You could perhaps find them if you perused the back numbers, which are to be found in most reference libraries, either loose or in bound volumes. We have also considered your supplementary letter and submission—wages lid., tires id., petrol id., depreciation 2d., repairs and renewals id., taximeter rent id., overhead charges, rent and sundries lid., making 7*-d. per mile run, on 10,000 miles per annum. The wages appear to m to,be too low ; lid. per mile, on 200 miles a week, is too low a wage, under present conditions, unless you have some special means of getting drivers'at low rates. Petrol, too, seems to us to be put too low at id: per gallon. but you will, of course, know your supply prices and the rate of consumption. Ana,rt from those criticisms, we consider that, subject to reasonable supervision and management, the summary which you have put forward is one upon which you can work.
A22 Battery.-equipped Vehicles.
[3015] (Brighouse).—The names and addresses for which you inquire are as under :— Euison Accumulators, Ltd., 2-3, Duke Street, W. Greenfield and Batley, Ltd., Leeds. General Vehicle' Co., Ltd:, Imperial, House, Kingsway, W.C. Jowett Motor Manufacturing Co., Grosvenor Road, Bradford. Mossa_.y_ and Co., Ltd., 8-9, Queen Anne's Chambers, S.W.
Current litti.4 Rates.
[3016] (C ustona). —Conditions are unsettled. We should not like to have to undertake haulage, work generally below the following average rates :—If for
petrol lorries, £6 a day for a five-tonner, a day for a three-tonner, or £2 10s. a day for a one-tonner, the minimum service in each case to be60 miles a day, or a lower mileage with the necessary standing by. If the mileage. is low, say, not more than 200 miles a week, these rates will stand a 25 per cent. reduction, or if only 150 miles a. week a 33 per cent. reduction, but they will not stand a. pro-rata reduction accgrding to mileage, and those for a five-ton steamer or a th'ree-ton steamer should be21 per day lower than for a petrol vehicle on the full basis, 15s. a day less on the second basis, and 10s. a day less on the third basis, all on rubber tires.
Sheep on the Highway.
[3017] (Long Distance).—Yes ; we had noticed the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of a motorist who claimed against a farmer, for damages to a •motorcar by sheep which had broken out of an unfenced field alongside the highway in Warwickshire. The decision merely proves that in this particular case there 'was no negligence of a character or sufficient to enable the motorist to recover, but you are wrong in assuming that the owner of the sheep had any prospect of a successful claim against the motorist in the circumstances. Each case of the kind will clearly have to be considered on its merits, and the decision is one which serves to emphasize the necessity for careful driving, by day or night. We agree with you, from the motorist's point of view, that the decision is an unsatisfactory one. We understand that it is occupying the attention of the legal department of the Commercial Motor Users Association.
Control of Parcel Delivery.
[3018] (Despatch Manager).—We have had placed before us, from time to time, various schemes for the control of parcel delivery by road motor. They are, of course, of necessity based upon local conditions and possible average performances under those conditions. One scheme, which seemed to us to Work well, was to allow five minutes. per mile of running, and three minutes per call ; of course, where an unusually high percentage a calls necessitates waiting to collect money, or delivery or collection at points far from the roadway, the average of three minutes per call will not-apply. A formula can be constructed on the following basis :—Let a be the average time required to deliver or collect one package, and complete the call, between stopping and restarting the vehicle ; let b represent the average number of calls to be made per mile of route • and let c be the legal speed of the vehicle expressed in minutes per mile. We then get a X b. = standing time per mile of route = d, and c d = average total time occupied per mile of route e. If we adopt a 10-hour• working day = 600 minutes, then 600 ÷ e gives the average miles travelled in that time = f, and finally b x f =
the number -of calls achieved per day. The average number of packages delivered or collected per. call can be separately ascertained.