Link National Braking Standards to Plating'
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WHILE the council of the Institute of IT Road Transport Engineers did not for a moment deny the need to increase vehicle weights and dimensions limits, it was very considerably worried by the absence of some legislative formula for braking performance on the vehicles affected. This was stated last night by Mr. Roger Gresham Cooke, M.P., in his presidential address at the Institute's annual general meeting. To consider the one aspect in isolation from the other was, he said, to run the gauntlet of all accepted concepts of road safety. It would be a good idea to link this weights and braking aspect with the principle of vehicle plating, he continued; the Institute had already come out in favour of a plating scheme in the context of such problems as overloading and black smoke, and favoured it just as much in the new context of a national standard of vehicle retardation allied to new regulations for vehicle weights and dimensions.
Mr. Grcsham Cooke complimented the Institute's vehicle exhaust study group, now dissolved, on its work and findings. He also commented that he had let it be known that he felt the Institute should be among the organizations consulted by the Ministry of Transport on proposed Construction and Use amendments, and now had the satisfaction of seeing the Institute included in the Ministry's list.
None of the tasks confronting the Institute was more vital than education of the young, he said, and he was glad to learn that during the coming winter there would be another evening similar to the very successful "Careers in Road Transport" forum organized last December. The implementation of the Government's policy for developing training facilities for the young squarely challenged the road transport industry today as never before, said Mr. Gresham Cooke.
Mr. Gresham Cooke closed his address by wishing success to the Institute's secretary, Mr. J. K. Bennett, who, as recorded on page 11, is resigning.
Technical education is featured in the annual report of the I.R.T.E., which records that the draft syllabus for the new corporate membership examination is now in the hands of a City and Guilds working party studying the concept of an examination requirement for the Full Technological Certificate in Automobile Engineering Practice. Consideration is being given to the inclusion of a complete section embracing the substance of the I.R.T.E. proposals, so that a pass in that section might fulfil the corporate membership examination requirement of candidates under 40 years of age.
Membership of the Institute at the end of June totalled 2,574, compared with 2,468 a year earlier.