Publicity for Rates
Page 32
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THE spotlight directed on low quarry 1 rates in the West Country has moved to the West Midland and Northern areas. The rates paid by quarries to hauliers are having a good airing, and it will do no harm and much good if fun details of rates paid in other branches of haulage are revealed in traffic courts. The encouragement given by the Incomes and Prices Board for more publicity about "Costs, turnover, capital, profit margins and so on" is bound to lead in this direction.
Whilst many transport men, in the private and public sphere, would react violently to this, I shall be surprised if rates questions are kicked under the carpet much longer. To my mind, rates and licensing are two sides of the same coin. Vast numbers of objections would never have been made had the hauliers concerned known precisely what rates were charged by the applicant, or paid by his principal customers. Often, when this is hinted at. opposition falls away magically. The licensing system. which c2 some would say is now on trial for its life, cannot afford any longer to isolate rates as being commercial secrets into which one should not presume to pry. It is not far-fetched to imagine LAs' offices strengthened by transport rates experts who could be relied upon, if necessary, to tell customer witnesses supporting applications that the rates they proposed to pay a haulier were grossly uneconomic, inevitably conducing to poor maintenance or excessive hours.
Not Their Function The Transport Tribunal and many LAs have taken the view that, other things being equal, it is not their function to question rates, however low. Mr. J. R. C. Samuel-Gibbon effectively tore that argument to shreds in his inquiries into Contract A-licensed operations from West Country quarries. Is it not reasonable to hope that in the future LAs will not only licence vehicles but also pronounce upon the rates applicable to particular classes of traffic?