OPINIONS FROM OTHERS.
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The Editor ilbVileS correspondence on all subjects connected with the use of commercial motors. Letters should be on one side of the paper only and typewritten by preference. The right of abbreviation is reserved, and no responsibility for views expressed is accepted.
The Definition of Plying for Hire.
The Editor, TilE ,C0141MERCIAL MOTOR.
[7.836] Sir,—It is becoming more and more important that persons owning vehicles that may be used generally or occasionally for passenger carrying should know how they stand with regard to the law.
The definition of " Plying for hire" is far from being easy to understand. -Every wheeled carriage, whatever be its form or construction, used in standing, or plying for hire, and every such carriage standing upon any street having thereon any numbered plate, required by the Act to be fixed upon a hackney carriage, or having thereon any plate resembling or intended to resemble any such plate as -aforesaid, is a hackney carriage plying for hire. Also every omnibus, char-a-bancs, wagonette, brake, stage coach, and other carriage plying or standing for hire by, or used to carry, passengers at separate fares to or from any part of the area of the urban authority. Cars starting from a garage, and previously hired by the passenger are not included, provided they do not customarily ply for hire.
The driver of a ear or char-h-bancs who plies for passengers in one district, and drives those passengers to another district, where he sets them down, and picks them up again for the return journey, is not deemed to be plying for hire in the place where he sets down. A man who keeps his vehicle within his garage, but touts for passengers outside, is deemed to ply for hire within the meaning of the Act. As I understand matters, a hackney carriage must be registered in its appropriate class and not under para. 6 of the schedule to the Finance Act of last year. That is for " vehicles other than" hackney carriages. If my reading of the law is incorrect I would like some fellow transport worker to puttie right —Yours faithfully, ZaRnoss. Barnsley.
The All-weather Coach.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
ff1837] Sir,—In your issue of the 29th ulto. and in the article entitled "Motor Coach Design and Construction," reference was made to the need for the all-weather vehicle, and it was Stated that this type of vehicle scores heavily. I would like to back up this opinion very strongly. Last year, owing to the very wet summer which. we experienced, I, as a motor coach proprietor, had to cancel a large number of char:abancs trips owing to passengers refusing to travel in a vehicle which was equipped only with a hood, which, as they knew, is seldom put up until everybody has got wet.
I believe the ordinary type of charah-bancs will soon be quite out of date, and that all enterprising proprietors will utilize some vehicle which can quickly badonverted from an open to a. totally-eneloaed one. Possibly the, smaller types of chars-aelaanes may survive with the one-man hood, because the passengers in these get rather more protection, but, with the larger vehicles, -a hood gives practically no protection if. there is a side wind, any rain then being blown right through. the sides, except in the case of those seats just behind the -driver. At present the prices of the few all-weather bodies on the market are coatremely high, bet competition will probably bring these dawn, especially if there is not a ready sale for the ordinary -type of body. It is my belief that the purchaser of an all-weather body will very quickly recoup himself for his extra expenditure, as
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not only could a vehicle be used during showery days in the ordinary char-h-bancs season, but it would becomefar more popular during the winter for the conveyance of football enthusiasts and others — Yours faithfully, Coacua PROPRIETOR. Freston.
Would Private Enterprise be Killed in Durham? The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[1838] Sia—Those of your .advertisers who are out to sell all the vehicles they can produce will not., or should not, agree with your editorial -opinion that "all private transport enterprise in the country will be killed" if the proposals of the Durham County Council to rim omnibuses are carried out. Under the present system, OE lack of system, there. is not enough transportation provided for all thepassengers who are compelled to travel, or for all the merchandise that needs to be moved. The objection to the Durham proposal is not that it is politically unsound, but that it is economically inadequate. All big transportation plans should be thought out as part of a nation-wide system having a scope and purpose inconceivable to the limited intelligences of transport ministries or railway executives.
Private enterprise—always snore desirable than official control, as the telephone muddle shows—only picks out the plums from the traffic pie. It does not .` pay" to pick out the currants. The State postal monopoly has not killed private enterprise. IVIany firms stand ready to carry small parcels and to deliver advertising circulars. The privately controlled railway monopoly has not killed haulage contractora—'.ts deficiencies have brought them into being.
The great slogan of ,The Commercial Motor surely should be (paraphrasing Van Dyke) "More transport and yet more-transport "—not muttered dolefully as the last words of a dying industry, but blazoned on every banner -a-s a message. of. vitality. Side.: by side with extended transportation facilities. -must be extended transportation publicity, so that every trader will realize subconsciously that the maximuni means of transport is no farther away than the nearest telephone. A national system, whether wholly or partly State controlled, or built up by co-operative private enterprise, involves plenty of good roads, an unlimited number of commercial vehicles, ample garage accommodation, well placed and fully stocked fuel supply depots, and a great national telephone exchange devoted solely to transportation traffic. The latter would solve the problem of the return load.
The transportation industry needs more advertising. (a) Ito sell its vehicles, and (b) to. sell the services of those vehicles. Many clients, who consult me on their selling problems have chosen to, face the problem of increased distribution facilities—and in not a few cases I find that the limiting factor a business expansion is a restricted facility for moving raw material in and finished merchandise out. The real competitor of the road transport now is the railway, not the county council. The time was never ao ripe for vast extensions of road traffic. Railways are not equipped to handle expanding business; and every new steam wagon and motor vehicle on the road, and every new passenger-carrying omnibus in Durham or elsewhere, lessens the demand for replacing railway trucks and coaches. if Durham county buys more omnibuses than private enterprise would. provide for the traffic, British omnibus builders will sell that much more.— Yours faithfully, THOMAS RUSSELL. Surrey Street,. London, W. C. 2.