Sparing the rod?
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
John Hanlon's attack at the FTA conference on the inadequacies of haulage licensing would have fared better at the RHA conference. Hauliers would have cheered the Northern LA's campaign for tighter control on new entrants. But they would also have gained a glimpse of the multiplicity of measures, and supporting bureaucracy, which this would involve.
Most malpractices would be met by stricter enforcement of the existing laws. But this is an issue which could justifiably. be turned back upon the speaker himself: he said that even the pre-1968 legislation had only been halfheartedly applied—and who is to blame for that, if not the LAs, the kingpins of the system? The punishment commonly meted out in the traffic courts is still derisory if the intention is (in Mr Hanlon's own words) "to protect the honest and genuine and damnify the dishonest and incompetent." Making the present system work is half the battle, while the weaknesses of the entry situation will be more than adequately met by the new 'EEC legislation. Just as well, because the chance of the industry putting its own house in order in the way advocated by the speaker is, on recent evidence, rather less than that of being struck by lightning.