Transport

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30213, 19 August 1963, Page 3

Transport

Sir,—l read that the Commissioner of Transport, speaking to the Contractors' Federation, said there were too many trucks running round partly loaded and that transport management needed to be improved. He referred to Mid-Canterbury, where there is almost no return loading, so equipment is under-used and transport expensive. With such a statement most would agree. Then I look over a weekly paper and read a court case where the Transport Department brought four charges against a fruit and vegetable carrier The defendant firm was entitled only to carry full cases to market; its trucks must return empty, while other carriers licensed to carry empty cases but not full ones brought back the empty cases over the same road. —Yours, etc., PUZZLED BY OFFICIALDOM. August 8. 1963. [The Transport Department replies: “The Commissioner in his address to the Contractors’ Federation was referring to many vehicles in New Zealand being underutilised and had in mind the large numbers of trucks operated by individuals and private firms, as distinct from public carriers, which are doing relatively small annual mileages, with the net result, of an excess in transport capacity. In the specific case referred to, the operator who was prosecuted was unlawfully carting cases at the expense of another public carrier who was licensed for this work and whose trucks had the capacity to take the loads and to do his trip loaded rather than empty. Accordingly, there would have been no net gain to the economy and no increase in over-all loaded miles run by-

the trucks concerned by allowing the operator who was prosecuted to continue his unlawful cartage.”]