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Despair of inner city driving
Page 132
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CFDC member Barney Abberton has been in transport for over 22 years, gaining his HGV 1 in 1961. He worked for BRS from 19621972 and is now with BP Oil at their Fulham Terminal in London, just five minutes drive from home in Chelsea where he lives with his two children and his mother.
Besides driving for BP, he has a property conversion business with his brother — and all this he manages to organise around his many golfing activities!
The trials of driving for the British team in the International Driving Championship in Oslo (in the rigid class) were a very different challenge from the stress of everyday driving in the capital. Delivering principally around London, Barney is all too familiar with the problems caused largely, he believes, by bad planning and laws which are not enforced.
For example, often the route laid down by local authority is not the shortest or the most practical. "I would have no objection to that, but the police don't check that the main roads that we can use are kept clear." He went on to suggest heavy onthe-spot fines for parking in a restricted zone.
Bad parking can make access to the delivery point impossible, causing frustration to both driver and operator. Delivery poses particular problems in inner city areas where there are restricted hours of access. A classic example is Oxford Street, where deliveries have to be made on Saturday morning.
Then, having got within a stone's throw of the delivery point, you may well find that there are width restrictions on not one, but both ends of the street! Reversing a long way down a sidestreet could need someone to help, doubling the expense to the operator.
All these problems reflect a lack of appreciation of the driver's job of work. Barney also felt that there was a major grievance amongst drivers about the way they were viewed by local authorities. "Facilities are often miles away from where you need them and the hours ridiculous. In many lorry parks you have to be out by the early morning and you can't get in them until 5.30 in the evening. If you had an early start and your tacho is running out with nowhere to leave the vehicle, you just have to resign yourself to a ticket."
Drivers are probably one of the worst-treated professional groups in the country — yet they give industry and the community a vital service. Surely it is about time they were treated as such, and allowed to get their job done?