Safety in Numbers
Page 32
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FOR some time members of the North Western (Eastern) Area of the Road Haulage Association have been considering the establishment of a clearing house or its equivalent. Divergences of opinion have naturally arisen and there seems to be no immediate prospect of the idea being brought to fruition.
The Association cannot, of course, indulge in trading, but there is nothing to prevent individual members from banding together to exchange traffic, as they have already done in south-west England. Whether they should set up a new organization, in preference to using the established machinery of a body such as Associated Road Transport Contractors, is, however, doubtful.
R.H.A. policy rightly encourages co-operation between hauliers and aims at the preservation of fair rates. . Economic charges are more likely to be maintained by a well-organized exchange of traffic between hauliers through a group, such as those already in existence in Sheffield, Nottingham, Macclesfield and elsewhere, than by indiscriminate sub-contracting. Grouping on these lines could do much to uphold the schedule of fair rates between 77 key towns which was submitted on Wednesday to the long-distance hauliers' committee of the R.H.A.
A co-operative organization of hauliers is entitled to membership of the R.H.A. clearing house group and to any benefit accruing from it. Established clearing houses already on the R.H.A. approved list might object to competition from a hauliers' group, but interworking among operators need not exclude the use or participation of reliable clearing houses.
Grouping need not cause hauliers to lose their identities, and it is highly desirable among those who are not in a strong competitive position. Even for others it has marked advantages in enabling loads to be secured quickly and at profitable rates.