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THE CONTAINER COMPLEX
Page 45
Page 46
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THERE are fashions and phases in haulage no less than in clothes, although bodywork on vehicles is less exaggerated than designs in haute couture. Containers are the latest craze. Investment which is being put into their manufacture, the extension of rail liner services and the conversion of docks into container berths, all indicate that shrewd appraisers of transport developments, both here and abroad, foresee a profitable and lasting future for them.
The new fashion is creating some controversy in rather unexpected quarters. In licensing salons two questions are being asked. The first is whether Licensing Authorities are entitled to require applicants for carriers' licences to include in an application the unladen weight of containers which are to be used with the vehicles concerned. The second is whether applicants must disclose any intention to convey containers. Both questions are not merely academic. They can affect potential objectors no less than applicants and licence-holders.
Part of the vehicle or not
On unladen weight, the real point is whether a container is to be regarded for licensing purposes as part of a vehicle or merely as a load. For enlightenment about this it is desirable to look at both the Road Traffic Act 1960, which deals with carriers' licences, and the Vehicles (Excise) Act 1962, which concerns the excise (Road Fund) licence. Section 255 of the 1960 Act says that unladen weight is to be taken as "the weight of the vehicle inclusive of the body and all parts (the heavier being taken where alternative bodies or parts are used) which are necessary to or ordinarily used with the vehicle when working on a road" exclusive of such items as tools, fuel, water, etc. The 1962 (Excise) Act says just the same, but goes on: "In computing . . . the unladen weight. . . there shall be included the weight of any receptacle, being an additional body, placed on the vehicle for the purpose of the carriage of goods or burden of any description, if any goods or burden are loaded into, carried in and unloaded from the receptacle without the receptacle being removed from the vehicle: Provided that the weight of the receptacle shall not be included. . . (a) unless the receptacle is placed on the vehicle by or on behalf of the person in whose name the vehicle is registered . . . or (b) if the receptacle is constructed or adapted for the purpose of being lifted on or off the vehicle with goods or burden contained therein, and is from time to time actually used for that purpose in the ordinary course of business, or (c) if the receptacle is specially constructed or adapted for the carriage of livestock, and is used solely for that purpose."
The statutory forms of application for a carrier's licence require an applicant to disclose the unladen weight of a vehicle, and a note on the back of the forms indicates that the unladen weight means the unladen weight shown on the Registration Book. Thus are excise licence and carriers' licence linked.
Marginal cases
In practice, very few vehicles with containers present difficulty about determining unladen weight. They either clearly come within the definition quoted above or they do not. Considering the scope for dispute, marginal cases are remarkably rare. There was a period in the middle 1950s when a great deal of trouble arose. It was at the time when Special A licences were in effect obtainable on demand for denationalized vehicles. Many purchasers of those vehicles, wishing to mount tanks for carrying liquids on the flat vehicles they had bought, found themselves unable to do so without jeopardizing their right to the Special A licences. The ingenious subterfuges which they adopted to get round the difficulties need not be recited here, for that period is happily past.
High Court decision
More recently, there was a veritable collection of court cases in the Northern traffic area. They dealt mainly with cattle containers, and the point at issue was size, not weight. Did the vehicles, with their containers, comply with the Motor Vehicles (Constructions and Use) Regulations 1955? That was the question which first magistrates, then the High Court had to decide.
Two of the cases will serve as illustrations. In 1962. Claude Hughes and Co. (Carlisle) Ltd. was convicted and fined for using a Foden rigid six-wheeler with a three-tiered cattle container which increased the vehicle's overall length beyond the permitted 30 ft. On appeal, the High Court confirmed the decision, ruling that a detachable livestock container, when bolted to the vehicle as this one was, and having direction indicators and a number plate attached to it, was in law a part of the vehicle for length purposes.
Appeal dismissed
In the same year (1962), John Stamper (Farms) Ltd., of Maryport, Cumberland, appealed in the High Court after being fined for using a Leyland eight-wheeled rigid vehicle in excess of 30 ft., contrary to the Construction and Use Regulations. The vehicle's overall length, with an overhang from a three-tiered cattle container, was 32 ft. 11 in. The container was secured by screws and bolts, and had hook attachments for lifting it on and off. The advocate for Stamper submitted that the case differed from that of Hughes. Where the container was in effect part of the load, and secured only in the same way as sheets and ropes were used for other loads, it should not be regarded as a reconstructed body, he contended. The appeal was dismissed, however, the court holding that "when a cattle container is fixed to a heavy goods lorry, the vehicle is then so reconstructed that it must comply with the Regulations". But that was not the end of the matter for Stamper. When the company applied for the renewal of an A licence, the Northern Licensing Authority, who is wellknown as an enterprising tailor who wields a sharp pair of scissors, announced that renewals would not be granted unless undertakings were given by applicants that any containers included in a licence would be within the prescribed limits of length when used on a carrying vehicle.
Controversial question
The other question posed earlier—whether an applicant for a carriers' licence ought to disclose that he proposes to carry detachable containers which are not included in the
vehicle's unladen weight is the really controversial one. The position can be put briefly in this way. An applicant for an A or a B licence is required to show on the application form the type of vehicle concerned, the class or description of the goods he proposes to carry, and the places to which or the districts within which they are to be carried. So long as he provides that information, it is not incumbent upon an applicant to volunteer the further information that the goods he so mentions are to be carried in containers. Potential objectors may like him to do so for their own reasons, but he is not making the application to please objectors. Even if the applicant did disclose this further information, the LA need not necessarily publish it when announcing receipt and details of the application. The LA has some discretion over what he prints in the official gazette known asApplications and Decisions. Decades ago, for instance, it was established in the High Court that he was entitled to publish a non-notifiable application of the kind referred to in section 173(1) of the 1960 Act (i.e. a trivial application, a takeover, a short-term or an application which the LA is bound to grant). Conversely, there is little doubt that he could leave out details about containers without conflicting with
his duty of publishing notifiable applications.
The fact that disclosure and publication of such details might in present circumstances suit those hauliers who are potential objectors to applications for additional A licences made by British Railways in connection with liner train container traffic is not enough. To establish long-term precedents for the sake of momentary advantage would be decidedly unsound.
There are indeed good grounds for suggesting that an applicant would be illadvised to volunteer information about detachable containers. By doing so he would bind himself, if he is an A applicant, to a declaration of normal user more constricting than it need be; and if he is an applicant for a B licence, any possible detrimental effect would depend upon whether the reference to containers was reproduced in the conditions of the licence and how precisely the conditions were worded.
It is of course an entirely different matter if the LA requests further information, as he is empowered to do under the rather neglected but none the less important section 172(3) of the 1960 Act. That sub-section, which goes on to mention in particular such matters as rates, agreements or arrangements between hauliers, financial interests and rights to nominate directors of applicant companies, starts off with the broad statement that any person applying for a carriers' licence "shall give to the LA any further information which he may reasonably require for the discharge of his duties". But to volunteer information about containers without being specifically requested by the LA to do so would be gratuitously to invite trouble. My advice therefore would be-"Don't".