RAILWAY BUSES KNOWN TO EXCEED SPEED LIMITS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 3

RAILWAY BUSES KNOWN TO EXCEED SPEED LIMITS

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 13. The Railways Department did not discourage its bus and service-car drivers from breaking speed limits to keep time schedules, the Railways Tribunal was told today.

Giving evidence at the tribunal, a servicecar driver, Mr J. P. Cranston, said drivers frequently reached speeds of 60 m.p.h. to meet time-tables.

The tribunal began the hearing for a wage claim of 6d an hour wage increase for department bus and servicecar drivers. Mr Cranston said the timetables were set on an average speed of 28 m.p.h. for a trip. But this did not allow for varying climatic and roadsurface conditions, density bf traffic and handling of freight carried by buses. When asked whether the department instructed drivers to exceed the legal speed limit of 45 m.p.h., Mr Cranston said? “No, but they condone it.” He said he was sure the department knew the practice had been in existence for years but still schedules were made tighter and services speeded up. He said drivers often received traffic tickets for speeding and these had to be paid by the drivers. Rrivers’ Loyalty He agreed the department was probably using drivers’ loyalty to maintain schedules. Mr Cranston told the tribunal that service-cars were carrying greater volumes of freight than ever before, and when timetables were made out insufficient time was allowed for loading and discharging this freight

The present wage rates are? Leading bus and service-car : drivers, 9s 8d an hour; bus I and service-car drivers, 9s an : hour; temporary bus and ser-i vice-car drivers if employed on an hour-to-hour basis, 10s < 4jd per hour.

The present award rates for other bus services are 8s 8d an hour, except for Wellington City Council who pay their “operators” (a combination of bus driver and conductor) 9s 3d an hour. Mr R. Toole, for the Amal-

gamated Society of Railway Servants who are seeking the increase, told the tribunal that if passenger driving was confined strickly to “driving only” the society would possibly not be seeking the increase. “It is on account of the additional work, greater degree of responsibility and other problems which these drivers have to contend with that we make this claim," he said.