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RENTAL VIEW • Vehicles of 3.5 tonnes upward are hired in many cases to firms which have no Operator's Licence and which often fail to complete tacho charts.
We have been in haulage for 45 years and have seen different licensing systems and all kinds of legislation. We have to hold an Operator's Licence, a Certificate of Professional Competence and supply information about everything connected with our operation, including financial standing — all qualifications which we are in danger of losing if all regulations are not complied with.
Some truck hire and rental companies are ignoring these regulations.
Two of our customers, who do not hold 0-Licences, recently hired trucks from rental companies. The drivers of the vehicles were not used to tacho discs and consequently did not complete them. How then do they explain, if required to do so, the "missing miles" on the tachograph? We hauliers have to keep all the charts, by law, to be examined and any missing miles have to be accounted for. My interpretation of this law on 0Licenses is one law for hauliers and no law for the truck rental firms and the companies that hire from them.
Most truck rental companies are big faceless organisations in comparison to many small haulage firms which have to comply because not to do so would threaten their licence.
As RHA members we are disappointed that our Association has not thought it important enough to suggest some amendment to the Licensing system so that these rental companies are brought under scrutiny.
Hauliers hire their vehicles complete with drivers for hire *I reward, truck rental companies hiring for reward
should, if the law is observed, be on the same footing. We hope the RHA will come up with a solution to put to the Licensing Authority or Ministry
of Transport the need for an amendment to the law regarding rental companies so that hauliers can compete on equal terms.
E P Goulding, Gloucestershire.
TOUGH TRAINING • I read with interest your comment on "Tough Training", (CM 26 October-1 November).
We, as an approved training centre, use Leyland and Daf 2100 tractor units for HGV Class 1 training, as well as a vehicle fitted with the more difficult constant-mesh gearbox, together with the loaded and box type trailers.
Unfortunately, some haulage companies are more interested in price and how quickly a driving test can be taken, rather than the quality of training. The cost involved for training an approved instructor with the RTITB is appoximately £2,600, while many driver training courses are around £700.
Regarding tests being taken in laden 38-tonne vehicles, I feel this is unnecessary, as some trainees get nervous, which could prove fatal.
What is paramount is the correct type of training, with each stage being signed by the trainee, countersigned by an approved instructor, which could then be presented to the examiner prior to a test.
A syllabus for such a course could be drawn up by the RTITB and the Department of Transport. making ineffective training a thing of the past. R C Oldmeadow, Gloucestershire Transport Training Services.