Veteran lorry parade
Page 46
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Janus comments
NO REPORTS have so far been received of prohibitions on the use of vehicles following a visit to a testing station. The reason may be partly that the examiners are anxious not to appear unduly harsh and are running the testing scheme on a tolerant rein at least in the early stages. It is even more likely that no sensible operator would send in a vehicle unless he was confident that it had no major faults.
What remains to be found out is the extent to which ignorant or apprehensive operators have not applied for a test. Up to the end of 1968 this was necessary only for vehicles more than eight years old or more than 11 years old in Scotland. Well-maintained lorries of an even greater age can still do useful work. There must be many others no longer suitable for hard driving and perhaps confined now to work that can hardly be described as exacting.
Whatever the circumstances they should have been submitted for testing. Knowing that they could not be brought to the pass mark without disproportionate expenditure if at all the operator had the choice of disposing of them or taking the risk of .keeping them running without a plating certificate or a test certificate.
Neither of these was needed before December 1968 for the comparatively small number of vehicles more than 11 years old and weighing more than 3 tons unladen. For vehicles of the same age weighing more than 30cwt and not more than 3 tons the closing date is tomorrow. More and more vehicles will be covered in stages up to the end of March 1970.
For a short time the owner of a quasihistoric commercial vehicle who has little regard for the law may think he can take the small risk of continuing to use it. The absence of a plate will not be noticed until its display becomes obligatory for all vehicles; the older lorries are probably seldom used on journeys where they would encounter roadside inspections; and the kind of operator who does not bother with regulations is probably equally indifferent to licensing and unlikely therefore to receive a visit from an enforcement officer.
Those vehicles which have braved the test have not fared too badly. From a sample taken in the week ending December 20 last 60 per cent of vehicles and 75 per cent of trailers passed at the first test. Of all the vehicles tested up to the end of December three out of four passed including those that had to be submitted for a re-test.
How good?
How good or bad these statistics are it is difficult to say. No general assessment is available of the degree of severity of the examiners or of the extra care with which the operators made their preparations. It is still true that by the end of the year 7,487 out of the 30,459 vehicles tested had not received certificates. Unless they have subsequently managed to pass a test none of them after tomorrow may legally be used on the road.
If this pattern continued throughout the testing scheme there would soon be a seri ous shortage of vehicles. The presumption is that the statistics will improve. The older vehicles are likely to be more defective than the modern vehicles which will increasingly be called forward.
Once again a good deal must depend on the attitude of the examiners. They may have been indulgent in the early stages and have every intention of treating more sternly the newer vehicles that have less excuse for being in a bad condition.
The one-week analysis carried out in December includes a list of the main faults leading to the initial rejection. Heading the list is maintenance of the service brake which accounted for 7.1 per cent of all the defects on vehicles and 41.5 per cent of trailer defects. Also in the first half dozen were brake pipes, reservoirs, valves and connections; mechanical brake components; and maintenance of secondary brake.
The extent of the defects is not stated. It must be significant that they are the items that so often figure prominently on the crime sheet accompanying the immediate or delayed prohibitions imposed under the Road Traffic Act 1960. The absence of prohibitions as a result of testing under the new scheme may be no more than temporary.
Alternatively it may be regarded as little more than a formality. If the operator does not put the defects right and have the vehicle re-tested he would not be allowed to use it in any case after the final date for that category of vehicle has been reached. In an exceptional case where the fault was sufficiently grave the ban would no doubt be imposed at once.
There is a more permanent advantage in avoiding prohibitions. Before long the operator will have to apply for an operator's licence. As the holder of a current licence he will have an easier passage than a new applicant. The Licensing Authority will still have to consider whether he is a "fit person" and will look particularly at any past convictions. He will be bound to note any recent prohibitions and cannot avoid having these in mind when reaching his decision. A clean sheet is the safest defence.
Refusal of a licence to an established operator will be rare. If his record were so bad he would have lost his licence previous
ly. However, the extent to which his record is chequered could have a bearing on the number of vehicles which his new licence will permit him to operate. This could be very important when in due course he wishes to increase his fleet.
A statistical basis for licensing penalties is no doubt as hard to establish as a table of damages to be awarded for accident injuries. The Transport Tribunal seemed to be making an attempt in their recent judgment on an appeal by John Hill and Sons (Walsall) Ltd., Wolverhampton, against penalties imposed by the West Midland Licensing Authority, Mr. John Else.
The operator's fleet consisted of 12 vehicles on a B licence with a total carrying capacity of 162 tons. The tribunal upheld the decision of the Licensing Authority to suspend for 28 days two vehicles with carrying capacities of 12 and 20 tons. The company's carrying capacity, the Tribunal pointed out, would be curtailed by slightly less than 20 per cent during the period of suspension or by approximately 1.5 per cent in a year.
A wide variety of considerations was taken into account before this calculation was made and approved. They included some curious points. The Tribunal allowed to count against the company the "attitude and demeanour" of one of its witnesses before the Licensing Authority although they agreed that they had not had the advantage themselves of seeing and hearing him. They accepted that, after having offered in a letter the suspension of a single vehicle, the Licensing Authority was justified in doubling the penalty at the subsequent public inquiry requested by the operator.
LA was wrong
The Licensing Authority originally acted on account of an immediate prohibition on one of the vehicles. When agreeing to an inquiry he stated that he would also take into account three convictions for defects specified in the prohibition and five delayed prohibitions issued as the result of a fleet inspection. He was wrong, said the Tribunal, in treating the latter items as "matters of aggravation in arriving at the penalty".
This would arise, said the Tribunal, only if the offences were frequent, wilful or a risk to public safety. Since the faults were found in the course of a single inspection they could not be described as frequent; there was no evidence of wilfulness; and the very fact that the prohibitions were delayed reflected the opinion of the examiner that the defects were not dangerous.
Although every operator hopes to avoid prohibitions and prosecutions it is as well to prepare for the worst. It is certainly not a waste of time to examine judgments by the Tribunal to find out how they approach a case put to them. In the present instance it should be noted that under the Transport Act 1968 the Licensing Authority is no longer required in so many words to have regard to the frequency or wilfulness of an offence or the possible risk to public safety, although these points are bound to have some influence on his decisions.