COMMERCIAL MOTOR
Page 35
Page 36
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Recognized in Business Circles as the Leading Journal.
The Authority on all forms of Mechanical Road Transport.
Largest Circulation.
Conducted by EDMUND DANGERFIELD.
TWO new models of a sliding tilt which facilitates loading and unloading of a covered van are described
in this issue. . Page 724.
THE Co-operative Society at Derby is a big user of motor vehicles and the many-sided activities of its road transportfleet are covered in an interesting article in this issue," wherein the advantages of special types of
vehicle are clearly defined. Page 719.
MANY devices have been produced for increasing the load capacity of one of the best-known light trucks, and we describe one which includes a complete frame with four semi-elliptic springs and axle strengtheners; the particular model which we illustrate has been
specially built with forward control. Page 721.
THE ri5le of the prophet is not lightly to be assumed, but Mr. Shrapnell-Smith, in a special article for this the first issue for 1R28, has looked forward to see what ten years hence.will produce. .Ire touches upon many .factors in traffic and transport, in equipment and
supplies and in practices and methods. Page 709.
WE propose to Show. that designers of commercial motor vehicles definitely have in mind the duty which will be imposed upon the fleet engineer in the course of running and maintaining the vehicles. We dealt with the details of one well-known make in our second Show number, and in this issue we deal with those of
another prominent Product. Page 707.
MEMBERS of the Glasgow Corporation have recently conferred with the representatives of two railway companies on the subject of the methods to be employed to the counter competition of motorbus services, and a series of recomtriendations has been framed: As this may have a distinet bearing upon the operations of bus owners, we give details of the recommendations
• In full. -.Page 720.
MATTERS which arose in Parliament during the last few days of the Session are dealt with in this issue by our special _Parliarnentary correspondent in the Press Gallery of the House Of Commons. Pie explains the final. amendments to the new Lighting Act and deals with the position arising out Of the development of motorbus services in Glasgow and the county Of Lanarkshire. Page 705.
THE coming of the pneumatic tyre, of a type capable of carrying heavy loads at an economic speed, holds out a definite promise of a complete revolution in the absorption of the vibration to and of heavy trans-port vehicles. We. ,hold the view that the use of the pneumatic tyre should be encouraged by a modification in the scale of taxation for vehicles so equipped and, in this issue, give some facts and figures in support of that argument. Page 712.
The Ministry of Transport Reprieved.
JUST befOre Parliament rose for the proroga tion until February 7th, the Prime Minister set at rest all anxiety about the continued separate -existence of the Ministry ofiTransport, the Depart; ment of Overseas Trade and the Mines Department, which Mr. Churchill in his last. Budget 'speech condemned to extinction in the course of the Current financial year. Mr..Baldwin's manner of letting his -colleague down gently was a little amusing. He 'talked' of of the difficulty of finding time next session for the necessary legislation which, it was evident "from the continuous series of representations from traders, transport organizations, miners and other interests, would be controversial." He further observed that it would not be right. to make demands upon Parliamentary time out of all proportion to the actual savings likely to be effected.'
Mr. Morrison suggested that the effect of the Prime Minister's statement was:that the Departments would go on as usual until the Government could find time for legislation. "That seems to bea; reasonable deduction," Mr. Baldwin replied, with due gravity. A still more reasonable deduction, -however, is that the Government has definitely abandoned the intention to abolish the Ministries. It has been urged in these columns, and in road transport circles generally, that the ecoriondes to be effected by the course Mr. Churchhill proposed in regard to the Ministry of Transport would lie a mere bagatelle compared with the disservice rendered.to transport interests by handing over, the functions of the Ministry to a branch of the Board of Trade which is already responsible for an infinite variety of matters.. : At a time when the development of road traffic has . created immensely difficult new . problems, when important traffic Bills are on the stocks, and when co-ordinatioui or pooling of traffic arrangements is on the eve of development, not only in the Metropolitan area, but, if we may hazard a prophecy, in large Cities throughout the country, it would be disastrous to sacrifice the existing selfcontained administrative Department with its own Minister responsible to Parliament. .
Probably, if the Road Fund had-been entirely in the hands of the Treasury, less" would have been heard about the proposal to abolish the Ministry of .Transport. It is difficult to conceive of any other consideration that would explain the Chancellor's plan to wipe out the Ministry. Mr, Snowden, an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, certainly did not give much credit to the economy plea when he doubted whether the savings to be effected would be much more than £10,000 a year.
From a purely administrative point of view the uncertainty over the fate of this and other Ministries ought to have been dissipated at an earlier date. It is to be hoped that many years will elapse before a future Chancellor of the Exchequer will be induced to repeat proposals which have received hardly any support outside the Treasury and which have been roundly condemned by those most concerned in negotiations with the ,Departments.
Why Pneumatic-tyred Vehicles Should be Taxed on a Preferential Basis.
THE time has come to give the fullest possible measure of encouragement to the employment of pneumatic tyres on all those classes of commercial vehicle which are not already so equipped. The large pneumatic tyre of to-day has reached a stage of reliability and long life which makes its claims of far greater importance than was the case only a few years ago, but even now some inducement is required to persuade users of the heavier classes of vehicle to forsake the solid, and we would strongly recommend that this matter be given the fullest attention by the Minister of Transport and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Millions of pounds have been diverted from their legitimate purpose of road maintenance and construction, and if only a portion of this vast sum of money were allotted to the reduction of taxation on vehicles equipped with pneumatic tyres an immediate benefit would be felt. The actual working of such a scheme would require a little thought, but would not be difficult. It might be made to apply only to those vehicles which do not, in the ordinary course, gain quickly apparent advantages from the employment of pneumatics.
For instance, in only one example of the private car is use made of the solid tyre, whereas in the case of the heavier types of commercial vehicle it requires some pluck on the part of the owners to make a change-over from solid tyres to those of the pneumatic pattern. It means an initial outlay which, in the case of a fleet, may reach quite formidable dimensions, but .a satisfactory tax rebate would encourage owners to take the plunge, being then confident that they would receive some immediate benefit apart from expediting transport work and reducing maintenance costs.
We cannot expect the Minister of Transport to take any action in this matter unless he be convinced that there is some justification for it. To us it seems obvious that the better cushioning and the bigger area in contact with the road provided by the pneumatic are bound to exercise beneficial effects, but there are some critics of the pneumatic who go so far as to state definitely that a vehicle equipped with pneumatic tyres causes as much damage to the road as one equipped with solid tyres. The main reason they advance for such a statement is that the vehicle with the former type of equipment usually travels at a much higher speed than the vehicle on solid tyres. Such an argument may appeal to some, but in our opinion —which s backed up by results of many experiments—such a view is entirely erroneous, and in the article which occupies our centre pages we give some particularly interesting figures which have been obtained during the past two or three years as a result of tests carried out in France and America with a view to ascertainingthe comparative value of solid and pneumatic tyres in respect of their percussive effect on the rOad. In the case of the tests carried out in France, these were made more with a view to finding methods of reducing the damage to property bordering roads than to the preservation of the roads themselves or of the vehicles which operate over them.