Effect of plating may push up livestock carriage rates
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THE likely effects of plating, in cutting customary payloads of livestock vehicles, are potentially a matter of "grave concern" to the committee of the RHA livestock functional group, states the chairman, Mr. F. G. Garrood, in his annual report. A thorough examination of livestock haulage rates will be necessary, he warns.
Mr. Garrood takes the example of an operator who is currently running a 14-tongross four-wheeler which weighs 4 tons plus 2+ tons for a typical livestock container, leaving maximum payload capacity of around 7-1tons without exceeding the legal gross. Plated as a 7-tonner, this type of vehicle with 2+-ton container would have only 4+ tons payload capacity under the new regulations. The operator, warns the chairman, will be faced with having to earn the same revenue for carrying 4+ tons as he is at present getting for 71 tons.
The report states that the revised regulations for the transit of farm animals and horses by road, which the Ministry of Agriculture has been discussing with interested parties for some three years past, will soon be coming into effect. The functional group committee believes that most of the properly constructed livestock containers in use will comply