HINTS FOR HAULIERS.
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An Occasional Chat on Subjects and Problems of Interest to Those Who are Engaged, or About to be Engaged, in Running Commercial Vehicles for a Living.
THE SCALES of charges which have appeared in \ the two preceding articles are conveniently arranged so that the owner of one or two vehicles may easily refer to the items which are of , greatest concern to him personally. A man with a four-ton petrol lorry, for example, and possessing no other vehicle, will bear in mind that his charge per mile should be 2s. 71-d., while, for journeys in which terminal delays for loading and unloading are unduly prolonged, he will chargea given amount per hour plus a mileage figure, to the end that the result may be the same, so far as his profit, is concerned, at , the close of the day. Comparing these rates with those, I gave a few weeks ago, as having been adepted by the Motor Trades Association (Midland Section), it will be noted that, for light vehicles, my new scale is higher,. butfor heavy chassis' mine is lower.. This bears out my consistent contention that the M.T.A. rates are perfectly fair, and that hauliers who are undercutting them, and regularly doing work for remuneration considerably less than the rates given, are losing money, and will soon be out of work.
There is another point which must be made clear. Hauliers are .continuously writing to me asking if the rates J quote are for outward journeys, or for the total distance. S. little consideration of the method by , which the rates have been arrived at, should render such a question unnecessary. .The rates given are based on the cost of running the vehicles themselves, which is calculated per mile rit2i. Therefore, the charges also must be per mile run, so that a man who has to run a four-ton lorry 40 miles out with a load, returning empty, .must charge for 80 miles of running, The fact that such. remuneration is rarely received is. merely an indication of the parlous state to which the haulage industry has come, temporarily, because of shortsighted rate-cutting. . It is sometimes suggested by correspondents that a, motor vehicle costs less to run when empty than it (lees when loaded, and that consideration might very well Abe given to that in assessing the charges. One answer to this is that the lessened cost is problematic in amount and difficult to calculate. The only item really affected is that of the cost of fuel, in regard to which the saving in the cost of mining a three-ton lorry would hardly amount to a halfpenny a mile, while, on the other hand, it is notorious that most commercial vehicles depreciate more rapidly when running light than when loaded, owing to the higher speed at which they are driven, and also because of the ineffectiveness of the _ springing.
There is another point to be borne in mind; however, and that is that the working costs which I give are based on yearly mileages of all classes and types of Vehicle, except in a few cases, such as those of heavy pneumatictyred machine's, for which statistics are not available. The calculations are based .on totals of loaded and empty , mileages, and the results are averages. If; therefore, it be considered right to amend the costs, and consequently the 'charges, for light running, it is necessary, logically, to make similar correc
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tions of the reverse order for loaded•joluneys, and we thus have confusion worse confounded.
Another point, not by any means new, but one which continually crops up in correspondence. Many owner-drivers fancy that because they dispense with the services of a paid driver they can reduce charges accordingly. I have, I hope, shown this to be alastird before, but the present affords an opportunity of putting the matter in another way.
The wages of the driver of a three-ton lorry at the time of writing are four guineas. The same lorry, if it averages 50 dividend-earning miles a day, will be doing very well indeed. The working cost of those 50 miles; is 881 pence (see table on page 516 The Commercial Motor, November 23rd),, or 73s, 5d. The revenue, at the rate given last week, is 125s., so that the gross profit is ols. 7d. From this must be deducted the establishment charges, which we halite said may very likely be 27a. 3d., so that the profit will actually be 24s. 4d., say 26 10s. a week, in round figures, and this for .a capital expenditure of .21,200 to £1,500. There are surely'better returns than this obtainable in • other spheres of industry, involving less strenuous labour and much less risk. 26 10s.
added to 24 4s. is 210 148., which is reasonable and•fair. 26 10s. only is not sufficient encouragement to justify anyone in investing and risking is all, but £6 10s. is all .that the owner-driver will receive who voluntarily relinquishes his wages as driver.
As most of my readers will be aware, by the time these words appear in print, the provisions of the Finance Act (1920) will have been put into force, and the whole system of taxation, so far as it affects motor vehiclea,.Will be revised. At the same time, petrol is to be reduced in price by 7d., a gallon, and the net result, as regards economy of running, will very largely be governed by the annual mileage. The new tax is an addition to the standing charges ; the reduction in the price of petrol will serve to decrease the running costs. In nextWeek's article I_ propose to discuss the net result, and will put forward a new series of up-to-date tables, corrected , accordingly, THE SHOTCH.