OLD TRUCKS — POOR SERVICE • According to reports, business
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is booming in the London area, which is proving to be a very profitable venue for property dealers and building contractors etc.
The information we have is that there is an acute shortage of secondhand tippers in the London area, however, and I ask myself, why secondhand vehicles in a supposed boom area where labour for repairs is as scarce as gold? Could it be that the tipping industry in this area is as disorganised ratewise as in the Midlands and Scotland?
The contract hire and leasing/distribution side of the haulage industry avoid the tipping side of haulage due to the very costly maintenance and repairs required to keep tippers roadworthy. Many large quarry companies and public works contractors are deter mined to get rid of many tipping vehicles due to their high operating costs and because they can hire tippers as and when required, at very low rates.
But these people will have to decide, at some stage, whether they wish to hire dependable good quality vehicles at proper rates or hire has beens, which, quite truthfully, are a heartbreak, due to the fact that they continually break down and are therefore unable to give a reliable service.
Tipper operators should inform customers that vehicle replacement is a constant headache which they themselves wish to avoid. Perhaps a live and let live' policy would be an advantage to all concerned with the movement of goods.
Hauliers, on the other hand, could do much more to clean up our trade a bit, as the activities of a number leave a lot to be de sired. I can assure you that anything that is wrong with the image of the haulage industry has been self-created and can only be rectified by the present participants. Let's put the past five years behind us and think positive from now on.
Those who can see no further than the end of their nose should look more often to the horizon and less at their feet. Only then will we make some progress.
Robert Wilson, Dunfermline.