AN ASSOCIATION TO PROTECT NORTHERN OWNERS ,
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A North of England Association which is Endeavouring to Give Useful Aid to Its Members.
THE TIME is now ripe—or indeed almost overdue—for individual owners and local associations to set about the task of preparing their plans for the forthcoming coaching season in real earnest and with a minimum of waste time. Barely two months now intervene before Easter—popularly re,
garded as the official opening of the season proper—will be with us, and it will behove every owner to have his programme arranged well in advance in order to capture a due portion of the available patronage.
In this connection the preparations of the Northumberland and Durham Motor Coach Owners' Association are being pushed ahead, and have, as a matter of fact, been under way since the late months of 1922. Last, year the organiza. tion came into being, but, unfortunately, its inauguration was delayed to too late a date to enable the many reforms and improvements which it had hoped to. effect to be brought into being.
Admirable as was the programme arranged, individual owners had already drawn up their own schemes, and accepted. quotations which prevented them, however desirous they might have been, from complying with the decisions of the new body. Therefore, it was considered advisable from all standpoints to delay any forceful policy until the 1923 season, and now, with that season looming ahead, the association is pushing forward with all speed and energy in order to ensure that the mistakes and the deterrents to the industry last year will be either entirely off largely eliminated this year. It is hoped that by collective action, along lines calculated to stabilize the industry, the public confidence in, and the patronage of, the motor coach will be generally increased.
Some of the proposals of the association are decidedly new and interesting, and may receive the attention cd other bodies, and.even of local authorities now engaged in solving the task of. preventing road dangers and accidents which in times past have, in themselves, done much to retard progress in motor coaching.
The point of first importance in the policy adopted by this enterprising body is that of securing the necessary public confidence, and it is realized that the only certain way to do this is by guaranteeing entirely safe, satisfactory, and reasonably cheap facilities.
In the past much harm has been done to the status of motor coaching by ,directly converse facilities, and the Rim of 'the Northumberland and Purbant Association is to obtain a maximum num• her of owners as members 'ho are convinced that only guaranteed conditions are likely to mean any real development of the trade. It is intended,to issue, in respect of each coach owned by each member, a certificate, following– a thorough examination by the association's engineer, warranting the vehicle as entirely suitable, from the standpoints of mechanical fitness and general comfort. and safety, for passenger-carrying work.
Once this has been done, one of the leading points in the association's propaganda scheme will be to educate the public as to the advisability of patroniaing only guaranteed vehicles. Provision will be made, of course, for members to make a reasonable allowance en their charges for proper maintenance, B29
and it is thought that. once the public begin to realize the 'degree of safety which is provided by members of the arganization, they will retain their patronage for this class of owner, with the ultimate result that the owners who undercut and who do not allow a proper margin for upkeep will either see. the folly of their action, or be forced out of the trade by these owners who make ".ser-vice " their primary consideration.
-Subsequent supervision will, of course, be carried out. to ensure that vehicles once certified as suitable are not permitted_ to become unsafe, and in this connection a clause is included in the regulations making all certific-ates revocable.
With this end in view a canvass of the entire •areas of Northumberland and Durham is being carried out, by means of which it is hoped to obtain asufficiently large membership to carry the objects of the-association into effect.
So much for this side of the associa• tion's activities. But the association goes farther than merely protective and publicity work, and has evolved a scheme whereby members will secure material financial advantage by means of collective purchases which it will be possible to make by keen haying. By this means petrol, oils, tyres, and suchlike will be obtained at a reduced charge which will, it is hoped, result in considerable saving to members. Similarly, attention has been given to the legislation side. In such matters, for instance, as offering resistance to unfair road closing and any possible limitation of sizes of vehicles it is felt that collective action will be much more effective than individual representation.
In short, the association, which has as its president Mr. R. Irwin, of the Wallserid Motor Co., is fully alive to the requirements of owners in its district, and, provided it can obtain the necessary support, should do mach to better the coaching trade in the North.