STATUS INQUIRY
Page 41
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COMMENTARY by JANUS
FilOINTS of comparison are not difficult to find between the road haulage industry and the institution of marriage. In both cases licences are issued only after quiries have been made into any alleged -impediment. ther formalitieS follow before the transport business is Ally pronounced man and vehicle, and care is taken to ;e that a particular vehicle is specified. Activities that te.licenee does not cover are frowned upon. It can also said that both licensing systems have been in existence' sr some time and have seldom been without, their critics, ?spite which they still seem for the most part to give :asohable satisfaction.
The cynic's view of marriage is that those people outside ish to get in and those already in would like to get out. o some extent, this certainly applies to road haulage, so at it may seem regrettable that the prospective entrant is nothing corresponding to the organizations set up for tarriage guidance. Once he has succeeded in obtaining licence he is entitled to join a trade association and is ;ually welcomed as a member. He can then •have the enefit of expert advice and often of assistance from his lilow-operators. All this is admirable, but if, in fact, his rospects are not particularly rosy this is rather a late age at which to discover the truth. More often than not, s then committed too far to go back. Marry in haste, :pent:at leisure.
it May seem revolutionary to suggest that the Road raulage Association might accept probationers into a new itegory of membership. The idea is not entirely withot precedent. For many years past the road-rail negoti;ing committees have invited applicants for licences to iscuss the possibility of reaching an agreement with the hjectors before the case is heard in the traffic court. Very roperly the discussions have been restricted to licensing tatters, but the applicants have often received good advice icidentally. There is no fundamental reason why advice ri other points should not be made available through some ther medium, such as a trade association, to suppletent the guidance already available at the offices of the :ensing authorities and in the technical Press.
St DIFFERENT approach to the same end would be the )rmulation of a suitable test for prospective haulier.. The lea has been put forward more than once in various guises, ad it has received added impetus at the present time from le .complex of discussions that is growing up around fhe tbject of the Common Market. More than one European Duntry requires operators to take an examination before ley are allowed to set up in business. There has been ttle objection in those countries, so that presumably they rill promote something similar for inclusion within a ammon transport policy for Western Europe, when it is arthcorning.
Apart from the international aspect, there are reasons thy the idea is receiving serious consideration in some uarters in Britain. To the younger generation in particutr, the licensing system seems more and more meaningless. be argument that it was primarily designed to protect c railways has lost much of its force at a time when the ilways are no longer as important as they were and when ey are on the point of discarding the last vestiges of their n shackles. The pressure of licensing has kept the road haulage industry from expanding. It should be encouraged to put more vehicles on the road with the effect perhaps that trade and industry would no longer need to run so many vehicles of their own. This at least is the opinion of the critics, and most of them set no store on the old wives' tales of the chaos and disaster that characterized the road haulage industry 30 years ago when there was no system to control entry.
IN some respects, the system then set up is unduly restrictive. In other respects it is regarded as hopelessly inefficient. It is full of holes through which the astute or
unprincipled man can easily find his way. The most noticeable evidence of this is to be found in the growing popularity of the switch from A contract to A licence, and from C to B licence. Nor does the licensing barrier protect the innocent. Every day there are stories of hopeful men with a very little capital being cajoled into an arrangement that does not give them a fair opportunity to make a living.
There are some inconsistencies in what the critics have to say. There is still at least some force in .their suggestion that the licensing system is in danger of becoming outmoded and that it would be worth while thinking about another, or Supplementary, method of regulating entry into road transport. An inquiry into the ability and resources of an applicant for a licence might be found useful. It would certainly help to discourage the man who is almost completely ignorant of what is involved and whose venture more often than not leaves him worse off than when he began.
The test should not be too severe and should take as little account as possible of what are usually regarded as standards of education. The aim would he to discover whether the applicant has the knowledge, skill and intelligence needed for what he proposes to undertake, Whether he should also be required to reveal his financial standing is another question altogether. It might be better for the examining body to assume that, if he could satisfy them that he knew what he was doing, he would naturally not go ahead unless he also had the necessary resources with which to back himself, The proposal would bring its own problems, including the status of the examining body. There would no doubt soon be a suitable textbook available and possibly even schools of instruction. I can envisage existing operators, Or their traffic managers, taking the exams, which might seem more realistic to them than those at present available. In due course, the process might well be extended. Special classes would be run to meet special circumstances, and particularly to cope with the results of establishing a closer relationship with the other countries of Europe.
After all, the idea is not so startling.. Already the driver has to undergo a test and the suggestion has recently been mooted again that there should be a special variety for. the commercial vehicle driver, His vehicle also is subject to examination and the tendency is all in the direction of making the process more stringent. It seems almost a logical consequence that the man who should be the most important of all, the employer of the driver and the owner of the vehicle, should not object to some inquiry into his suitability for the job_