Trailer row
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• Merseyside Chamber of Commerce & Industry is pressing the Department of Transport to retain a loaded semi-trailer at the Sirnonswood HGV testing station to assist the brake testing of 38-tonne three-axle tractive units.
The test trailer was introduced experimentally last December, at the suggestion of the chamber, to assist hauliers who have difficulty in providing loaded trailers for the test.
Now the chamber has been told by Roads & Traffic minister Peter Bottomley that although the availability of the trailer has been well publicised, local operators made use of it on only 29 occasions.
"While we wish to assist operators as much as possible we have found that the supervision involved in coupling and uncoupling, due to Health and Safety considerations, has absorbed a considerable amount of our staff's time with a consequent loss of supervision in the test hall," says Bottomley. "The financial considerations involved in providing a number of these trailers at suitable locations throughout the country would represent a considerable oncost to the inspectorate. Those operators making use of this facility would effectively be subsidised by other operators, and at present there is no legislative power to charge a fee which caters for this."
The proposal is worthy of exploration but the problems preclude its extension, Bottomley concludes. The Vehicle Inspectorate is conscious of the difficulty in providing loads for testing and will continue to examine other technical solutions to this problem.
Bob Crossley, a past chairman of the chamber's Surface Transport Committee, has refuted the minister's suggestion and says that the trailer has not been well publicised because it was felt operators should provide their own trailer whenever possible.
The chamber is replying to the minister urging that the experiment be continued. It has also been suggested that hauliers using the trailer would be prepared to pay a small fee.