Fines for Technical Offences.
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By the Editor.
Our friends in Lancashire and Yorkshire have in increasing numbers of late been experiencing the pains and penalties which attach to the commission of technical offences against the provisions of the Heavy Motor Car Order. We refer more particularly to the number of summonses for excess axle-weights and excess speeds. We have no doubt, that a certain proportion of the summonses and convictions is deserved, and that fines have in a measure punished those who are responsible for persistent everdriving and overloading. Readers of THE COMMERCIAL MoTOR will be aware that we have at all times set our faces against these practices, and have directed attention to the hardships which such actions engender for reasonable users of the highway. Our sympathy goes out to the many owners who have suffered through inadvertence, for they fall in a different category. The grievances of local authorities, such as the Town Council of Bolton, are clearly at the root of the trouble, fully as much as the admitted faults of any users. Bolton and other Town Councils, and we only mention Bolton because it is the worst example, have set out to vent their spite upon owners and drivers who bring through traffic upon their highways, regardless of the fact that the highway system of this country is a continuous one, and that grants in aid of the maintenance of such main roads have been regularly paid to them by the State for many years past. It is true that Bolton, in common with other Lancashire towns such as Blackburn, Bury, Preston and Rochdale, the while receiving such annual sums direct from the Exchequer, has elected to spend considerable proportions of them upon other matters, such as poor relief, asylums, police services, and education. They have none the less received the money in part for road purposes, and have in part so applied it. Nothing about these Governmental grants is mentioned in the police courts when the prosecuting solicitors have been making their speeches to the Bench. The situation until quite recently appeared to be one which must work out its own solution. It was, in fact, strictly comparable with the unhappy situation of motorcar owners some 8 or 10 years ago, when the magistrates at Andover, St. Neots, Haywards Heath, Kinston-on-Thames, and a few other courts which we might mention, were little short of vindictive in their attitude towards ordinary motorists. The law fixes the maximum speeds at so many miles per hour, and the maximum axle-weights at so many tons ; the police bring certain cases into the courts, apparently leaving others untouched, which picking and choosing may yet call for some explanation. Matters have changed for the better, so far as the motorcar owner is concerned, by reason of an enlightened public opinion. The speed limit of 20 miles an hour is ignored by tacit consent, and no harm is done. The growing line of activity is to summon individuals who drive to the common danger, which act may concern moving at only 10 m.p.h., or even less, under particular conditions. The old speed limit has become virtually a dead letter, yet there are many reasons for leaving it on the Statute book.
Can we hope to see the day come, and that before long, when the uncertainties which attach to the ownership of the heaviest types of commercial motors in some centres will likewise disappear ? We are inclined to think so, although it may take a few years for all the antagonism to die out.
This year's Finance Bill promises 50 per cent. of the cost of maintenance of " Class I" roads to all local authorities, and 25 per cent. of the cost of "Class II " roads. The county boroughs will, as they have done each year since the passing of the Local Government Act of 1885, continue to get the benefit of such grants. Whereas, however, the expenditure of these county boroughs upon other matters has left them with only a few thousands a year each for application to the main roads, they will now have the 50 per cent, specifically provided, if the intentions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are duly fulfilled. The great and underlying cause of the hostility to which we have referred, so far as it springs from the side of the authorities, should therefore disappear. The other reason, in prospect, is one for which we are ourselves in a measure responsible. We refer to the suggestion that the higher weights per axle should by law be charged at so much extra per ton per annum, and the owner concerned relieved of further liability. A degree of latitude of that nature must be adopted, in our opinion, before the legitimate commercial needs of the country can be satisfied, and before owners can find themselves in a position to conduct motor haulage with the same degree of freedom as that which at present exists for owners of horse-drawn vehicles.
We are well aware that the law seldom recognizes any plea for latitude, even in a commercial country. The fact that a load has, due to the exigencies of daily work, been stowed on a motor-lorry platform so as to place a few extra cwt. on the back axle, while taking them off the front axle, is no answer to a summons for excess weight on the back axle. The situation, in respect of these minor offences, is laughable, if it were not also serious from the point of view of the parties who suffer.
We have never been able to understand why the police in Lancashire and Yorkshire have not granted a small measure of licence to owners and drivers, and if they want a precedent we can refer them to Sir Edward Henry, the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, who does allow a small margin in respect of the 10 m.p.h. and 12 m.p.h. speed limits, in London and in the Royal parks, and does so in the best interests of justice. It is not the man who is 10 per cent. above the technical speed limit who is doing harm, any more than it is the man who is a like percentage above the technical axle-weight limit : it is the " hooligan " of each class, unmindful of obligations both legal and moral.
We hope that harassing summonses will now stop, with the prospect of 50 per cent. grants for main roads so near realization. It rests with some owners themselves to help matters forward to this end, because they cannot expect the authorities to overlook scandalous degrees of overloading and overdriving. The payment from national funds of this new grant towards main-road maintenance, and of the further new grant of 25 per cent. towards the maintenance of roads which are not quite so much used as the 15,000 miles which are to be classed as No. 1 roads, will be the first step towards better relations between the authorities and owners of heavy 'motor vehicles. It will not, of course, remove all the difficulties, and it certainly will not remove the difficulties of those traders whose requirements are not met by close adherence to the present axle-weight limits. The solution, for them, in our judgment, is to be found in the payment of an agreed sum per annum for the higher weights which they desire to carry. They should, armed with the receipt for that payment, provided the axle-weights do not at any time show an excess above the certified maxima be freed of all anxiety coneetning the running difficulties of to-day. We know that it is only in relatively-few instances that axle-weight troubles are experienced. but we know equally that the eight-ton axle-weight in ordinary commercial and everyday work will not for much longer satisfy everybody. Those who wish to go beyond it must be prepared to pay for the privilege. We believe that they will welcome the opportunity.