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Page 34
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SIR
CHASING OUR TAILS • I read with interest in your 2-8 February issue "TSEG calls for united blitz on jams". As anybody involved in transport must know — we just cannot carry on as we are.
The roads (particularly the M25) are becoming more and more choked up as we watch the months go by. As a managing director of a medium-sized company based in the South East, I see our margins being continually eroded by:
0 Rate slashing.
0 Justifiable wage increases to drivers.
0 Difficulty in keeping good drivers when owner-operators get better pay and conditions. 0 Poor traffic conditions caused by too many goods vehicles chasing back empty to OFFENSIVE DRIVERS • With reference to Commercial Motor's Legal News pages, and all the companies and drivers receiving fines for tachograph and drivers' hours offences, I am ashamed to call myself a lorry driver.
When I read drivers' claims that they do not know about the 24-hour rule etc, I wonder what they learn at driving school these days.
I think it's about time the Government tightened up on things. Companies should get a copy of the DTP GV22, and their drivers should read it and sign it to show they have understood the regulations. Or drivers can ask their Traffic Area office to send them one, and a note should be attached to each driver's file at the TA office. No driver could then claim that he didn't know. base, either because they do not need to back load, loads are not available, or they are simply not worth doing.
honestly think that a radical approach has to be made by the Government before everything comes to a grinding halt. Perhaps more regulation on the number of vehicles companies can put on the road, or penalise empty running.
I fervently believe in freedom of choice and free enterprise — but even I am beginning to think that we are all chasing our tails. It's crazy and we are stupid if we let it carry on. The powers-that-be should act now. It is not so much more roads that we want, but more efficient use of the existing ones would help us all. Name and address supplied.
I also believe that anyone applying for an HGV licence should have a written test on the subject, and the Highway Code, before they get anywhere near a vehicle.
As always, the UK is 10-15 years behind in important issues. We always drag our heels and believe we are the best in the world. Well, as far as I'm concerned, we're far from being the best.
If stronger fines were made against drivers breaking the law, and they were made to read GV262, there would be a drop in the number of offenders. All the "cowboy" firms would have to buck their ideas up or have their 0-licences revoked for life. That would put an end to such things happening again.
R A Weston,
Keighley, West Yorkshire. CHANGING TIMES • 1 was interested to read the letter from S Brewer (CM 26 January) regarding your previous remarks concerning the EPS gearchange system.
It is to be wondered whether this sophisticated type of gear selection would have been necessary in the first place had gearboxes not become so complex, and in many cases so difficult to operate. A situation exacerbated by the introduction of that appalling concept, the double-H gate.
Many years ago, it was possible to change gear all day long without touching the clutch, with light and positive selection (albeit without the dubious benefit of synchromesh) on various gearboxes, although it must be admitted that none boasted more than six speeds, sometimes augmented by a two-speed axle.
Without doubt the best of all modern synchro boxes has for many years been that used in Volvo vehicles which, as far as I know, features nothing particularly revolutionary in its design. So, surely manufacturers could equally well make a light, easy-to-change gearbox for even the heaviest of road vehicles, without having to resort to complicated electronics.
Incidentally, why has the SCG semi-automatic, epicyclic transmission, used for so many years with outstanding success in PSV applications, never been uprated to handle higher engine outputs?
It is rumoured that Guinness once allocated a tractive unit, possibly an AEC Mondaton, fitted with this type of gearbox, to a driver who had lost a leg. Perhaps someone can confirm this?
E G Corke,
Ealing, London W13.
A number of truck operators have tried automatic transmissions in an artic, including Express Dairies and Carryfast, which both experimented with a Daf 2500 tractor with an Allison automatic box, as did Freightliners with a similarlyequipped Volvo artic. Neither installation was an outstanding success. As for the AEC tractor with an automatic box perhaps a CM reader may know something
about it? Ed OPERATING CENTRES • With reference to the recent interest regarding RHA membership and the use of an official lorry park as the operating centre, may I make a few comments in the defence of such hauliers who are faced to use these facilities.
I am sure that all you readers are aware that in order to obtain an operator licence one of the requirements is that the applicant has to prove to the licensing authority that his operating centre is approved by the local council and that it meets all the environmental conditions that the law requires.
Surely, if one meets all these requirements and the operator has been granted a licence, what is the RHA up in arms about?
I am an owner-driver and my operating centre is approved by the relevant licensing authority, and would meet the approval of the RHA because it is on an industrial estate. I wish my local council would provide the sort of lorry parks that the RHA approves, in order to bring my costs down. In this area of the South East, land is at a premium, and to build a parking area is simply not financially viable; if you put a building on the land it is worth 20 times as much as the lorry park. As for the RHA, I suspect that the motive behind their latest campaign is one of costs. Any operator whose operating centre is a lorry park is going to be more competitive on prices. The answer to the RHA is to join the competition and use the designated lorry parks.
My definition of a cowboy is not one that uses a council lorry park as an operating centre, but one who has not got an operators licence, tax or maintenance facilities. These are the people that the RHA should be trying to deter. G N Vanhowton,
West Sussex.