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Opinions and Queries

31st August 1956, Page 57
31st August 1956
Page 57
Page 58
Page 57, 31st August 1956 — Opinions and Queries
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Clearing Houses Defended

TOUR article, "Unscrupulous Clearing Houses the

Biggest Menace" (August 17), has made my blood boil. Never have I read so biased an account. No mention is made of the good clearing houses which primarily have the interests of hauliers at heart, often more than their own interests. No mention is made of the inefficient haulier, who is prepared to let his vehicles tramp all over the country looking for loads without having any control over his driver.

When comparisons of charges are mad* and the haulier thinks he has obtained an unfair rate from a clearing houSe, the rate that is always thrown back into the face of the clearing house is the net amount after the recognized 10 per cent. commission has been taken off. No haulier will ever quote the gross rate if he wants to make a point. But the same haulier will expect a full return load from the same clearing house at all times of the day, thinking it is inefficient if it cannot load his vehicle at 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.

No mention is made of the defections of inefficient hauliers who hold goods in their home-based depots for weeks, conveniently forgetting that the clearing-house proprietor also has a duty to his customer to give prompt service.

As for rate-cutting, 1 can quote more examples where the culprit was in every case the large haulier, and not a clearing house.

Denationalization brought about the entry of some 3,000 small hauliers with three vehicles or fewer. Are they expected to have an office at every town to which they deliver, or to telephone the transport managers of large industrial concerns for return loads every time they are in their area? Of course not_ They need clearing houses, and they have to be educated to co-operate.

If a haulier goes to a clearing house that is not a member of the National Conference of Road Transport Clearing Houses, or the clearing house group of the Road Haulage Association, he is perfectly entitled to do so. but he has only himself to blame for the consequences. industry might do better, too, to go only to the reputable clearing house, which normally deals only with the reputable haulier.

W. A. HEYMANN, Managing Director, J. and H. Transport Services (Peckham), Ltd. London, S.E.15.

REGARDING your report, "Unscrupulous Clearing Houses the Biggest Menace," there are no members of the clearing house section of the Conference in business on Tees-side. In the article, reference is also made in passing to a clearing house in Manchester, but I have no means of knowing whether the establishment is a member of the Conference or not.

If hauliers persist in taking traffic from clearing houses whose methods of trading they find objectionable, they have only themselves to blame. If the clearing house has, in their opinion, let them down, the remedy is in their own hands by giving that establishment a wide berth in the future. If no hauliers will work for these clearing houses, "bucket shops" will soon he driven out of business.

Hauliers who are members of the haulier section of this Conference have the opportunity of reporting to me, and through me to the National Council of the Conference, any point of dissatisfaction which may have arisen between themselves and another member of either section. Such complaints are handled promptly. Most of the members of the clearing house section have been in business for many years.

On the other side, the Conference is always anxious that the reputation of its clearing-house members should not be smirched by doubtful trading methods. Any complaints of this nature that can be substantiated can be dealt with by the National Council: vague accusations cannot. BOYD BOWMAN, Secretary, National Conference of Road Transport Clearing Houses.

London. S.W.I.

Stop Tyre Price Cutting

A S a tyre salesman 1 am finding it increasingly difficult " to make sales because of my failure to cut the price sufficiently to many of our leading hauliers. These men are getting a rebate in some cases almost double what I can offer and are playing off one representative against another. Some of the terms being offered arc truly fantastic and I wonder how• there is any profit left to the makers.

I would like to see different prices for different makes, with healthy competition, but this hole-in-the-wall business is poisonous to all who come into contact with it and at the finish a lot of small distributors' will be missing. In some cases, the people who started 'the cutting will be the first to go.

Accrington, Lancs. Notan-WEs r.

Facilities on, Trunk Roads

VOUR leading article dealing With possible, facilities I on the new trunk roads (which we all hope will be started on in the not future) in your issue dated August 10, was read by me With considerable interest. . . . .

I would suggest that "these roads should have traffic lanes not less than 36 ft_ wide, and, Of 'course', With a division between the (*posing _streams of traffic. If concrete is to be used, it should be .oft-the: non-flaking, frost-proof quality, but even the new rubberized bitumen

might be a possibility. . • The markers for the central strip should be in white weatherproof rubber, set with cat's eyes. Similar devices should also be employed for the kerbs, and special kerb markers to indicate a turn-out.

In my view, there should be a. lay-by every mile and, if feasible, the provision at each of these of a telephone kiosk.. The lay-bys should be of a size which would accommodate, say, four of the largest eight-wheelers.

All indicating signs should be so placed as to be easy to read at speeds up to 60 m.p.h.

Lighting is a matter of first priority and I would suggest high standards along the division between the roads, with lanterns alternately right and left, of either the sodium or latest fluorescent type. Warning notices regarding turn-outs, etc., should be painted on the roads at least half-a-mile away. Cafés and restaurants should be built to the requirements of the Ministries concerned and be provided,with ample parking space for the largest vehicles. They could be identified by a standard form of neon sign. Each should have a telephone kiosk, complete with emergency station numbers well displayed, and be equipped with fire extinguishers suitable for dealing with petrol and oil.

Full emergency equipment will be necessary at service stations, and this could include six-wheel-drive tractors for fire and rescue work, with two-way radio between them and the stations Ambulances, also with radio, would be essential.

All heavy vehicles at least should be required to carry road markers or flares for use in case of breakdown when they cannot be moved into lay-bys.

Distracting advertisement signs are, in my view, dangerous. Only those giving localities or other road information should be allowed.

As regards passenger vehicles, I would suggest that only through buses and coaches should be permitted. Bus stations could be built adjacent to any towns by-passed and passengers" ferried "to the trunk services by local vehicles.

Doncaster, Yorks. J. W. MORRIS.

WHEN one thinks of the motorways of the not-toodistant future, it must be in terms of speed and all that high speed entails. It will become commonplace for cars to travel consistently at 80-100 m.p.h. and commercial vehicles at 50-70 m.p.h. Not all drivers are mentally conditioned to handle vehicles at those speeds and crashes will have doubly disastrous results. There is ample evidence to prove this.

Therefore, overriding consideration must be given to safety measures. It is doubtful whether the ordinary traffic laws will be sufficient to cope with the needs of the motorways and special by-laws may be necessary, with steeper penalties for wilful infringement or negligence. More discipline than at present will be needed to eliminate careless and reckless (as distinct from fast) driving. Enforcement means the use of more police patrols.

It is assumed that separate twin roads will be divided by a fairly wide verge, along the centre of which should run a hedge, high enough and dense enough to obliterate oncoming headlight dazzle. Each pair of roads should be marked by white lines into four lanes each, two for slow traffic and two for fast. The two near-side lanes, Nos. 1 and 2, would be confined to goods traffic, with No. 1 the main channel and No. 2 used only for overtaking. Similarly, No. 3 lane would be the main channel for cars, coaches and so on, No. 4 lane again being used only for overtaking. No. 1 lane should be wide enough for the largest indivisible loads visualized to be carried without holding up other traffic.

All entrances and exits to and from the tracks would automatically be on the left, but that violates the guiding principle of no one line of traffic cutting across the face of another line. In this case, fast-moving traffic from No. 3 lane would cross the slower-moving No. 1 lane. Intersections could be controlled by traffic lights, those on the main line being set back about 50 yd. from the entrance and exit. In addition, following railway technique, a distant signal could be placed a further 200 yd. back, giving drivers adequate time to decelerate in safety.

Minimum speeds should be set and kept to except in fog, snow, 4altd visibility or ice. A uniform figure throughout hundreds of miles is impossible, Nit a sign 1324 post in bold lettering, visible by day and night, reading "Minimum speed for 10 miles: 20 m.p.h." is under standable. It would be followed at the end of the distance by another signpost with the appropriate limit marked on it. The same idea could be used to indicate maximum speed limits required when approaching intersections or service buildings. The signposts themselves should be constructed of rubber, plastics or material which gives readily on impact.

At all costs the menace of the stationary unlighted vehicle must be removed from the new motorways.

Lighting systems do sometimes fail for various reasons that are not the fault of the driver. But surely it is possible to carry a simple emergency lighting kit, functioning independently of the vehicle, which would be effective for two or three hours.

Consistently greater speeds over longer distances can be expected to result in a higher ratio of mechanical failures, again creating the bugbear of the .stationary

vehicle. For quick removal or repair a string of telephone booths, spaced at reasonably wide intervals, with the number of the nearest service station prominently displayed, would be an asset. The telephone numbers of the nearest ambulance service and fire station would be a further help.

There will have to be lay-bys, but they should not be too numerous, for the fewer intersections the better.

Cars and other vehicles using the fast lanes would have theirs situated on the off side of the road to prevent cutting across and returning over the slow lanes. Many vehicles with mechanical trouble could limp to the nearest lay-by.

All advertising matter on the roadside, and particularly neon lighting at night, must be debarred.

Filling stations, repair and breakdown services, over night accommodation and cafés are all required to smooth the traffic flow. They should be directly adjacent to the roadside. Such places must use outside floodlighting at night, but care in placing arc lamps would obviate glare to the oncoming driver. The place to site the buildings would be at road intersections, where the low maximum speed limit and traffic lights could be concentrated in one block.

Glasgow, W.4. ARTHUR R'. WILSON, M.I.R.T.E.

Tyres Should be Soft ! —

E comment, "the front tyres felt soft," in your road-test report of the Rutland Clipper rear-engined coach (August 10) could be interpreted as meaning to indicate an undesirable feature, but surely this is how pneumatic tyres should feel. The primary object of pneumatics is to yield and so to protect the vehicle and its loads. It would have been an unfavourable comment if it had been said that the front tyres felt hard.

The walls of Michelin X tyres are indeed flexible, as your report stated, but that is no reason for suggesting that steering might be "vague." So far as the tyres are concerned, steering precision depends primarily not on the flexibility or otherwise of the walls but on the ability of the tread crown to resist distortion.

In X tyres this part of the cover is, we claim, stabilized to a degree hitherto unknown and great precision in steering is given. It is this stabilization of tread which, by preventing shuffle, is also responsible for the greatly increased life of X tyres which operators' experience has proved.

W. R. GOOD, Stoke-an-Trent. Michelin Tyre Co., Ltd.


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