COMMERCIAL MOTOR
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Officially Recognized by The Commercial Motor Users Association.
The Authority on all forms of Motor Transport. Largest Circulation.
Conducted by EDMUND DANGERFIELD. Editor: EDWARD S. SHRAPNELL-SMITH.
Deliberate Over-loading: Probable Further Action by the C.m.U.A.
Owners who continue to give calculated or tacit approval to the evil course of deliberate overloading of their heavy vehicles deserve to suffer ; they have had considered warnings from us on several occasions, dating back to some of our earliest issues. We have, in this matter, the whole-hearted support of the General Committee of the Commercial alotor Users Association, which body is hostile to such deliberate excess-loading of motor wagons by its members or other owners whom it can influence.
Offences of the kind are to be deprecated on two chief grounds in the first place, they strengthen the hands of those road authorities and other influential local bodies who are opposed to heavy motor traffic ; in the second place, they are grossly unfair and unjust to the carriers and other owners who honestly and strictly conform to the requirements of the law. The Heavy Motor Car Order of 1904 permits the use of a heavy motorcar on the highways of this country, as a heavy motorcar, and free of the laws which govern the use of heavy traction engines, so long as the gross weight of the loaded wagon does not exceed 12 tons. Further, no axle-weight of the vehicle may exceed eight tons, which requirement, in practice, fixes the back-axle limit at that weight, leaving a maximum of four tons for the front axle. We do not, in these references, concern ourselves with trailers.
Too many owners allow the above-mentioned limits to be exceeded; some act innocently, but they are, in law, none the less blameworthy. The running of such overladen vehicles, especially if they be steel-tired wagons, and above all if they.be driven, as is often the case, at speeds well in excess of the legal limit of five m.p.h., undeniably does harm to many highway surfaces and crusts. The sett-paved carriageways of the big towns do not suffer, because a pavement of that class is constructed to withstand heavier loads and greater impact blows. It is the macadamized country highway that suffers, and there is no doubt that the authorities will be able to make out a strong case when they go before the Prime Minister in deputation a few weeks hence.
We have no desire to give rise to feelings of uncertainty amongst owners or purchasers of the heavier types of wagons, but we do feel that the best interests of the industry and movement will be served by our yet again putting into print a strong eondemnation of the harmful practice of overloading. A few carriers are the principal offenders, and their action is prompted by a desire to draw the extra payments that are chargeable in respect of the additional two or more tons of paying load. With these ill-gotten profits in hand, what do they care about an occasional fine of 25 or 210? Very little, we fear. Their selfish action is striking a blow at decentminded competitors who play the game. That, we do mind, but, whilst we do not seek to play the part of common informer, we keenly resent the inclusion of such men amongst the members of the C ULLA. Offenders should be expelled and black-listed.
We shall most certainly not let the matter rest where it is, and we shall even go so far as to support expenditure from within in respect of prosecutions. It may be a hardship on a man to find that his wagons weigh with their bodies very considerably more than he expected, and to have to try to make both ends meet on a reduced margin of useful load, hut it is better that the individual should suffer, or should make up his mind to have a reckoning with the manufacturer who sold the machine to him, than that the case against heavy traffic should be made formidable. Water bound and weak macadamized roads cannot, in many eases, stand up to legitimate traffic ; they corrugate and crumble under illegitimate loads and speeds. There is a good case against road authorities only so long as our own house is put and kept in order.
The 1914 Overseas Annual.
We are now engaged upon the preparation of our Overseas Annual for 1914. Last year's arrangement of the exhaustive contents of this Annual was highly approved by members of the industry at home, and the effective scheme accounted for much favourable comment in leading Overseas newspapers and magazines. The Annual which is now in hand will mark further advances in features and matters concerning analysis and collation, whilst its contents will make an effective appeal in new trade circles Overseas.
We particularly desire to remind supporters of this journal of the necessity for our completion of the Overseas Annual in December, and not in January, by reason of the fact that it is highly undesirable to interfere with proper attentioh for the North of Eng_ land Show, at Manchester, which exhibition is to be held early in 1914. As we have pointed out on previous occasions, the mailing of the Overseas Annual is correctly timed by us to reach' different parts of the Empire and foreign countries after the Christmas and New Year festivities are concluded. A perusal of the mailing dates which are set out on page 200 of this issue, and to which we give space in the knowledge that they will be of assistance to many readers who wish to time their Christmas and New Year greetings correctly, will enforce this point. Although the Overseas Annual will be completed, and in many cases mailed, before Christmas, we shall defer despatch, in respect of certain ports and countries, in order that no copies may in any case reach their destinations earlier than the 10th January,
Apropos the widespread appreciation and cireulation of the 1912 Overseas Annual, we may quote just a few extracts from the numerous written and printed references to it that reached us during the early months of the present year. From Mr. John E. Thornyeroft (dated 24th February, 1913):--" Your Overseas edition is, in our opinion, very much ahead of anything else that has been done by you or any other paper." From "The Indian Daily Telegraph" (issue of the 20th February):—" . . . . has been a task of considerable magnitude, but it has been achieved once again in the Overseas 1913 edition of
THE COMMERCIAL Mormt—a class journal which is devoted entirely to the commercial motor vehicle in
dustry." From " The Manitoba Free Press" (issue of the 15th February):.--" Great Britain is undoubtedly the centre of these developments, as much on account of its wonderful system of trunk roads as
of the capacity of its manufacturers to produce machines. . . . The Overseas edition of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR has within its covers all. . . ."
From " The Straits Times," Singapore (issue of the 5th April):--"TEE COMMERCIAL 1V1OTOR is justifiably accepted as the authority ; its weekly issues kept one abreast of what is going on. . . . The Overseas Annual is an epitome of all that, and marks the progress of events and the march of improvement." From " The Daily Mail," Brisbane (issue of the 12th March) : —" THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR Overseas Annual contains a great mass of information about this great new industry."
The phenomenal expansion and growth in many of our Overseas Dominions is a matter of common knowledge, but too few people appear to connect this growth with the raison d' are of the Annual of the kind which we compile and publish each year. Great Britain is an old country, and percentage increases are small : people at home frequently wait for old plant to wear out, before they make purchases con
nected with mechanical transport. The state of affairs that obtains Overseas is wonderfully different. Percentage increases are huge, in very many instances, of which we may cite innumerable cases in Canada, due to immigration. Similarly, though from other basic causes, the change in many eastern colonies and countries, from ancient methods to new ones, takes place without premonition or warning ; it asserts itself, very frequently, as a rapid conversion, and such reversal of mental attitude is necessarily reflected in new business developments and purchases. It is to factors such as the foregoing that our mailing department is paying exceptional attention in the building up of new lists, and in the revision of existing ones. The 1914 Annual will be ahead even of the best that have preceded it—and we have given a leader's independent opinion of that. Every copy of it, other than voucher copies, will be mailed, or sold through newsagents, to Overseas readers ; we have decided not to sell any copies at home, but we are prepared, on receipt of sixpence in stamps, to cover cost of postage, ourselves to dispatch a copy to any Overseas address, on request.
Road Repairs and Housing Difficulties.
We have been interested to observe a report, by Mr. H. T. Chapman, the County Surveyor of Somerset, to the effect that he has very great difficulty in getting suitable workmen, chiefly owing to the want of housing accommodation in the neighbourhood of the re-surfacing and other road-improvement or maintenance work that is in hand in parts of the county. We have, by direct communication, invited Mr. Chapman's consideration of the claims of motor transport, as a means of providing a likely solution. We are well aware that many contractors in different parts of the country have found it pay them handsomely to use vans, lorries or chars-a-bancs for the purpose, .either to convey the men alone, or to take the men accompanied by their implements and materials. One of the oldest examples of the kind is that of a certain asphalt-paving company, in London, which company began with an early Thornycroft steam wagon, more than 13 years ago ; another of which we have personal knowledge concerns a waterworks undertaking, whose breakdown and emergency gangs are regularly conveyed in this „manner.
%), a desire, in directing attention to the particular case of the County surveyor of Somerset, merely to point the moral for others, as we believe that many tabour and housing difficulties can be reduced by proper applications of motor transport. It may not, of course, pay a oontraetor or engineer to hire or to purchase enough vehicles to enable him to take the whole of the men at one and the same time and by a single trip, but the journey from a town or a village is seldom more than six miles to the place where the labour has to be utilized. With a rubber-tired vehicle, this means only one hour for the double trip, and it will be recognized that the difficulty of starting some of the men an hour later than the others, so as to get in two double trips in the morning and the same in the evening, is probably less in magnitude than others by which responsible persons are at the moment confronted. If we reckon the inclusive cost for two double trips of 12 miles each, making 48 miles of running for the day, at an outside figure of £3, and if that expenditure is sufficient to remove disaffection or other trouble, the money will be well spent. A total of 80 men, moved backwards and forwards as is iadicated, at an outlay of £3, admittedly makes an addition of fully Id. per hour per man, but the result is to get the men, where they are wanted.
We commend the above suggestion to owners of ehars-k-banes who are on the look-out for winter occupation, as a great deal of road-maintenance work is undertaken during the char-h-bancs " off " season. There is no occasion to use high-class bodywork.
Trailers for Travellers.
We illustrate an interesting small trailer, which should prove of considerable interest to commercial travellers, in another part of this issue (page 192). The attachment is exempt from the usual requirements, anent trailers, which have to be met by owners. as a general rule. This peculiarity of exemption is, due to the fact that the attachment under notice falls. outside the terms of Article III (2) of the Motor Cars (Use and Construction) Order, 1904, from which we quote : "Every vehicle exceeding 2 cwt. in weight unladen, drawn by a motorcar, shall have a brake in good working order," etc., etc. No brake is necessary in the case of a trailer which, weighs 2 cwt. or less unladen, and none of the regulations which apply to trailers of ordinary weights and types can be construed to affect this small, luggage-carrier.These new " Auto-Trailers " are. likely, in our judgment, to be of great service to many owners who find that their existing vans are taxed already to the limits of their carrying capacity. They should also be extremely useful in numerous instances. for the conveyance of empties. They will, broadly speaking, add to the effective space of any van or anytraveller's ear, at small eost. It is found possible, within the maximum limit of weight to which we have referred, to obtain inside platform measurements on one of these " Auto-Trailers " of 48 ins. by 20 ins. They reverse with facility, and travel at high speed' without getting out of control in any way. We foresee many interesting uses for these " Auto-Trailers," and we have no doubt that various van builders and motor manufacturers will desire to obtain licensing terms from the company which awns the patents. We understand that, so far, no extensive arrangements have been made for the manufacture of types which should appeal more especially to ownersof utility vehicles, although arrangenients forthe supply of models for private cars are completed..