Add Light Signals to Highway Code
Page 51
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I AM writing in full support of the most sensible letter I written by Mr. Stockdale (The Commercial Motor, March 16) because I also feel very strongly that the headlight code should be included in the provisions of the Highway Code.
Although only a private motorist, I know most of the code and consider that it is an essential factor in road safety.
feel so strongly on this matter that I am already in correspondence with the Ministry of Transport and I have asked them to let me know what alternative signals they suggest for specific parts of the code. It is significant that in a reply no alternative signals were suggested, but I have written again and shall pursue this matter with the utmost vigour in the interests of increasing safety on the roads and I urge all drivers who feel that the code is essential to write to the Ministry of Transport at St. Christopher House, Southwark Street, London, S.E.1 without delay.
It should be obvious that this code has been created by the country's experienced drivers and it is without doubt a most useful safety factor when correctly used and to enable this to be done I consider that the Ministry should publish the code forthwith.
The argument at the moment seems to be that it is likely to be misunderstood and therefore cause danger. The obvious remedy is to publish it so that there can be no misunderstanding.
Bassett, Southampton. D. T. FORREST.
• " A . Nice • Little Racket"
v OUR recent issue featuring semi-trailers, and particularly the suggestions made regarding their future uses
• (and users), I found most interesting. Your readers might also be interested in one aspect of articulated vehicle usage in North America, from whence I returned recently after studying certain aspects of transport.
I think it should always be borne in mind that, when interchanging tractive units and semi-trailers, the tractive unit on its own can carry nothing. In a sense it could just as well be a private car. The load is carried in the semi-trailer, so the carrier's licence is on the trailer, not on the motive unit. What happens in North America, therefore, is that traders will hire anybody with a prime mover to haul the merchandise which is carried in their own semi-trailers. By this method, of course, they avoid all expensive maintenance for motor vehicles, and fuel and lubrication costs, etc., as well as wages. All their expense amounts to after the trailers are paid for is comparatively light maintenance on them. plus only two shillings or so per mile for the tractor operator.
The bona fide haulage contractor can scream that he is being deprived of business and go to law, but this won't trouble the trader, for there is nothing in law which insists that the licence holder should also be the vehicle owner. If this were so, all haulage. firms buying trucks would be in a real spot, since legally the ownership of a vehicle rests with the hire-purchase company until the mortgage is redeemed. Now some of our North American friends get over this, and the way in which they have done it provoked U.S. Attorney General, Mr. Robert Kennedy, into saying (when he was a Senate Committee investigator) that it was the dirtiest trick yet played on the working man with ambition. Yet it was all legal.
Firms advertise for a driver who "must be prepared to invest in his owntractor." Then they go in for the used tractor business. They buy the unit outright themselves, and, having got the prospective driver, they " sell " the unit to him—at a profit, of course, and on hire purchase. They themselves carry the financing and, naturally, they are sure of their payments since they stop them out of the driver's earnings on a mileage payment basis. There is not much the driver can do about it, since the tractor is operating on the firm's licence, besides actually belonging to them until the instalments are paid off.
He is Laid Off
Meanwhile, of course, the driver himself is responsible for all the fuel, oil, tyres, repairs and insurance. He finds that the privilege of being " on his own" comes very high. Often his "take home" pay amounts to less than what it did when he was merely a driver for a firm, when he never had the worries. That is 'not the end of his troubles, for whenever the licence holder's basic business happens to go through recessions he and his tractor are laid off. But the repayments have to go on just the same.
The driver is handicapped, too, in that he cannot take his tractor elsewhere to look for work. His employers hold the licence and, with no money corning in, he cannot pay his instalments. Well, that is too bad. The firm foreclose, and then;as their business picks up again, into the "situations vacant" columns goes the advertisement for a driver prepared to ihvest in his own tractor! The old tractor is once more sold at a profit and we start all over again! It's a nice little racket.
Hornchurch, Essex. S. A. `Norf.
Ford Model T Register
J\4AY I bring to the attention of your readers the existence of the Ford Model T Register, whose objects are to account for Model Ts of all types in this country, to aid in restoration, to. organize rallies, track down all remaining spares and to build up a library of books and photographs.
It has come to my attention that many garages have recently been disposing of various Model T spares for scrap, without realizing that members of the Register could make use of these spares in their restoration work. If any reader knows of the existence of Model T parts, would he kindly inform the Registrar, Mr. C. T. W. Pearce, 16 Townsend Drive, St. Albans, Herts, or the Spares Registrar, Mr. S. J. Baker, 2 The Ridgeway, Sanderstead, Surrey, either of whom will arrange for their collection.
Beckenham, Kent. W. G. RUTHEN, . Publicity Officer, Ford Mode! T Register.