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Legislation Restricts Tractor Use
Page 63
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FARMERS are supposed to be notorious grumblers, but when it comes to the regulations that beset owners of farm tractors it must he conceded that their grievances are many and genuine.
The trouble arises because three authorities are in control, but not in accord. When the farmer buys his machine the Customs do their best to :sting him for duty; when he brings the machine on to a public road two more departments take a hand, as he may or may not be called upon to register and license the machine under excise tax, and the driver may or may not be required to obtain a driving licence.
All this came about because, when tractors first appeared, there was no 'specialist body concerned with their users' interests ; consequently, uninformed people legislated haphazardly.
Take a young man of 17 who can legally drive a car and who may be a good enough driver to take it safely through any racing event, yet he has not even the right to be tested for a licence •to drive a simple farm tractor at 5 m.p.h. from one side of a road to the other. He must wait four years before becoming the possesseir of a tractor-driver's licence.
What upsets the farmer, apart from the irritation of such a stupid restriction, is the fact that under the Agricultural Wages Act he has to pay higher rates to the worker over 21 than to the driver of 17; moreover, it is .chiring the early years after leaving school that the young driver can be moulded into the right ways.
An investigation into the legal position generally, now being made by the Tractor Users Association will, it is understood, reveal an entirely chaotic situation which urgently needs clarifying. The obscurity of many regulations is such that different interpretations are made in various localities, and matters go from bad to worse.