Bird's Eye View
Page 56
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I WAS somewhat surprised by the vehement way in which I T.R.T.A. president K. C. Turner decided to speak out (as reported last week) at the R.H.A. East Midland area lunch on the subject of relations between the two organizations. It was, he said, distorted to suggest there was a cleavage between the two bodies which in fact had many fields of common interest. People should not read into the dissolution (due on May 1) of the N.R.T.F. and its replacement with "informal liaison" any split between the associations.
The R.H.A. national chairman, D. 0. Good was also present. Was it, incidentally, unique to have a T.R.T.A. president proposing the toast of the R.H.A. to which the R.H.A. Number One replied? Mr. Good also mentioned the subject of good relations, but ended by saying that if the Socialists sought to renationalize haulage, and to restrict traders, "then our associations will once again find themselves fighting side by side ".
Missing the N.R.T.F.
SOME time ago, this journal warned about the dangers inherent in the dissolution of the N.R.T.F., which was designed to speak jointly for both interests. 1 can only , suppose that Mr. Turner felt impelled to say what he did, and Mr. Good to say what he did, to prove to the world what had always seemed perfectly apparent—that the two organizations get on together with excellent harmony. However, the result is that one or two people started wondering (quite wrongly in my opinion) if there could be smoke without fire—because there was plenty of verbal smoke! I am quite sure there was no fire, so the smokebreathing was, in my view, not necessary on that scale (or has there been a fire recently?).
Flasher Bashers
NOW that the majority of buses in many areas have flashers, there seems to be a tendency for some drivers to become rather too keen to use them under circumstances when this hardly seems justified. I refer particularly to using the right-hand flasher when pulling away from stops with no obstruction in front of the bus, so that the driver does not steer towards the right to any appreciable extent.
The driver of a following vehicle, faced with a bus which has apparently signalled that it is going to turn across his path, is obliged to stay behind. When it transpires that there was no need to do so, he naturally becomes somewhat irritated. The real danger is that when this has happened several times, he may be tempted to overtake when the bus is going to pull out to pass a parked vehicle which is not visible to the following driver. This would be quite wrong, but very understandable.
530 I think flashers should be used only to indicate a substantial change of direction, the more correct " pullingaway " signal surely being the recognized hand one.
Scots for Scotland
NEXT week's conference at Turnberry of the Scottish Road Passenger Transport Association will be an opportune time for the bus industry and its friends to congratulate the Edinburgh Corporation transport department general manager, W. M. Little, on last week's news of his forthcoming appointment to head the Scottish Omnibuses group; 1962 and 1963 are, indeed, proving to be years of the rarest vintage for Kris (short for Morison—his second Christian name) Little, with honours crowding in for him.
He is, of course, this year's president of the Municipal Passenger Transport Association. Last year he received one of the B.T.C. awards for his paper to the Institute of Transport congress on European transport problems. The 1963 M.P.T.A. conference is to be held in his native city, Edinburgh, and will probably prove to be his last major municipal engagement—what a magnificent " swansong ".
The Inimitable James
AGENERAL manager (St. Helens) at 31, Mr. Little was then the youngest g.m. in municipal undertakings. That was back in 1941. He came to Edinburgh in 1947, becoming manager the following year. Now, at 53 and with a wealth of experience behind him, he will be a worthy successor to the inimitable James Amos. , One cannot envisage the bus scene without the robust crofter's son who rose from a one-vehicle operator, in 1919, to head the entire Scottish group, some 4,500 vehicles strong. James Amos, it seems, will still (to everyone's intense joy) be around as a member of the Transport Holding Company with special interest in Scotland. No doubt he will now be able to devote a little more of his time to his charming farm, near Edinburgh, his fine herd of Galloway horses and, indeed, all those equine matters which so delight his heart.