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THE CAB CAN 111

24th December 1976
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Page 30, 24th December 1976 — THE CAB CAN 111
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

LONELY PLACE...

lain Sherriff who has trave, %sands of miles in CV cabs argues the case for cab ra( ibettes and cartridge players

ONE of the loneliest work places must surely be the cab of a commercial vehicle.

For eight hours every day the long-distance driver has only the engine noise for companionship. His only communication with other humans is a flash of headlights to the oncoming drivers he recognises.

Even the short-distance or local delivery man is affected by the loneliness of the cab - . __..... even it to a lesser degree The time was when heavy lorry drivers were too busy to be lonely.

They were fully engaged in keeping their vehicles on the road without power steering, without airbrakes and insi cabs that invited gales throu! side panels and floorboarc sometimes even windscreens Today things are vasl different. Cab comfort h taken over in a big way.

Spring seats; well-laid-o dashboard; comfortable bunk air conditioning; power stee ing; indeed, almost everythir to make life tolerable is at driver's disposal.

But, strange as it may see (because their charges are ! easily handled and becaut they are so skilled), there is le: stress on the drivers now tha was the case 30 years ago.

They have more time t themselves but nothing to d with it -and this mu! 'inevitably lead to boredom, condition which encourage carelessness.

These men need a stimulan. company in the cab. In a worc a cab radio.

The driver's life will be mad more tolerable by supplyini entertainment, and his won rate will improve if you suppl. useful information.

Today, Christmas Eve, then are drivers stranded in Europi because of delays along thei route. Or because they werE just too late to catch that las. ferry home.

They will spend Christmas ir a vehicle park in a strangE country.

Because of delivery schedules, others will find themselves heading further away from home as the holiday season begins.

Because of the breed of men they are, they will accept the conditions and situations in which they find themselves. But they CAN be made more comfortable. And COULD be more tolerable.

These are, admittedly, extreme cases. The boredom of the day-to-day task of driving over the same or similar routes -in the UK or any other part of Europe -is sufficient justification for asking that the subject of cab radios be considered.

There is a school of thought which, having considered the subject, bases its argument jainst radios on the grounds of ad safety.

It argues that nothing should introduced to the cab which ill intrude on the driver's )ncentration.

Such intrusions, they say, iclude radios and taped music, ut can it really be argued that a ored driver loses Dncentration?

Might it not be the case that driver is a safer man with the enefit of "background noise"? There is no doubt in the linds of many drivers that cab ntertainment is an essential art of their vehicle fittings.

This is well-evidenced by the lumber of transistor radios een in cabs, in positions which equire the double-jointed skills if a contortionist to tune.

Here the driver may be udged to be unsafe, not )ecause his attention is disracted by the radio but because t is a temporary fitment that equires constant attention.

But, cab radios are not only >ources of entertainment They ire also useful sources of nformation.

This is particularly true in 3ermany and America. The 3erman authorities have adopttd

a road report information 5ystem which can save many lours of unnecessary fuel consumption caused through traffic am s.

Recently, CM was involved n a two-week experiment with I similar system in London, and t was measured that in 30 lours driving, over three hours lad been saved. When applied to commercial vehicles, the saving would undoubtedly have been greater in terms of time n d revenue.h the a

s s

o m e wavelength as raffic information, there are erman programmes designed o keep drivers in touch with ach other and their families. Our Lorry Driver of the Year -net a German disc jockey on is recent trip, and this "keepng in touch" gives drivers the eeling of belonging.

It is frequently argued that rivers are, by nature, loners, ishing not to belong. But their nthusiasm for the German disc 'jockey programme goes a long way to disproving this argument. The American CB (Citizen's Band) Radio goes even further.

Not only do drivers listen to professional-produced entertainment and information programmes, but they talk among themselves.

For example, if a driver hears that there's a bubble gum machine with a local yokel sitting on south at 1251/2, drivers travelling south can. expect to see a police car with a

flashing light halfway between junctions 125 and 126.

Not only is the CB entertaining and informative, but it also keeps drivers in touch with each other. Each year it grows in popularity.

—It—seems unlikely that Citi!en's Band Radio would take on

n a big way in the UK.

Were just a bit too small to make much of that commercially. And, until drivers are multi-lingual, its usefulness in the rest of Europe would also be limited But radio, as an entertainment and information service, cannot be so far from reality.

Of course, operators will argue that their drivers will pull in off the road to listen to racing results, football and other sporting attractions.

The argument against that is that they'll pull in anyway to listen on the café radio.

One other possibility is that, if they had an instrument giving them good reception, they would be unlikely to pull off the road.

It could be argued that there are sound psychiatric reasons for introducing company to the cab.

The introduction of cartridge and cassette players has extended the scope of teaching aids.

Left top: Close at hand, no need o over reach and, not elaborate but this is ideal.

Left bottom: Well mounted on the, facia panel but just near enough to be tempting.

It is now possible to take language courses on tape. It is also feasible to provide new drivers with their routes on tape. In fact, the scope of tapes as sources of education and information are limitless.

Again, the safety argument will be advanced, but drivers should be encouraged to use these teaching aids only when it is safe to do so.

In the interests of road safety, it could be argued that lives might have been saved if every vehicle involved in fog accidents on the M6 had been equipped with a cab radio, with traffic information in operation.

The cost of equipping the vehicles would have been much less than the insurance costs 'involved, quite apart from the distress which the fatalities caused.

There are many operators now fitting cab radios as original equipment. They are already convinced of the value of the equipment but, regrettably, they are still a minority group.

There are others who have fitted the equipment in more recent times, by way of a bonus to their drivers, but when looked at clinically they are looked upon in much the same way as windscreen wipers were in the Thirties.

It would seem that very little pressure has been on operators from those who manufacture and market radio equipment.

Indeed, every manufacturer we contacted said, almost apologetically, that they didn't make equipment for commercial vehicles.

However, their 12-volt systems could be supplied with dropper resisters and voltage reducers, which would modify the equipment for cv.

Radiomobile, who have looked at cv installation in some detail, are of the opinion that fitting is relatively easy in a modern cab, presenting no real problems to either the dealer or the operator.

Of the area of operation, they claim that reception is still predominantly AM, and, indeed, all Radiomobile equipment operates on that frequency.

Even on the Continent and in the Middle East, there are still many countries where AM is in common use, although in Germany broadcasting is mainly on the FM band.

Ideally, cab radio equipment would be a combined radio and tape player. preferably FM push

Close at hand but perhaps a little on the low side, this mounting gets nearer to the desirable.

button, and ideally it should be fitted as original equipment.

But those manufacturers who answered our inquiries, and whose details are listed separately, say that they will be happy to discuss individual requirements and prices with operators.

Radiomobile Ltd.

Goodwood Works, North Circular Road, London NW2 7JS Telephone 01-452 3333 Javelin Electronics Ltd. Second Way, Exhibition Grounds, Wembley, Middx. HA9 QUA Telephone 01-903 9821 Autocar Electrical Equipment Co. Ltd.

Chantry Road, Industrial Estate, Kempston, Bedford MK42 7SD

Telephone. 0234 853 535

Lucas Industries Ltd.

Great King Street, Birmingham B19 2XF Telephone 021-554 5252 Motoradio Ltd.

sett End Road Shaclsworth Ind. Est Blackburn EiBl 2PT Telephone 0254 53525 TODAY Christmas Eve, is the 65th birthday of Frank Lyon, public relations officer of the Road Haulage Association, and he is retiring after 40 years in the industry.

He must be one of the most erudite men in haulage; he's a man who knows the price of gold, can in any situation be relied upon to come up with an apposite quotation from Shakespeare — and he's also a transport guide, mentor. and friend to many a daily paper transport correspondent.

For years now, hardly a weekend has passed without a call from a journalist seeking an RHA quote on some haulage topic.

It's a job which has called for inexhaustible discretion, for .being the spokesman for an organisation, like the RHA must open up a larger vista of possible pitfalls than doing a similar job for a big firm.

"Now that you're retiring, now's the time to be indiscreet," I told him. "Who's been your favourite Minister of Transport?" A nice question to put to a Member of the Institute of Public Relations . .

But he did not fend off the question beyond an "I don't know about that, but . ."

The answer: "Ernest Marples projected the industry as something ongoing and worth while. Some other Ministers have seemed antipathetic to road transport."

He was more circumspect when I asked if he would nominate a wrong turn in haulage in recent years. "The change in the licensing system in 1968 was not a change for the better," he said.

"We should have retained the distinction between professional and own-account operators — although there was room for improvement."

Frankly speaking, Mr Lyon is not typical of the men who are well known in road transport; he's too widely read and courteous. Whereas so many of the others, bluntly, can't take that remark amiss.

How did he come into the industry? As a Poplar boy, he passed a scholarship examination and matriculated to London University, where he graduated in English. In 1936 he joined the then Associated Road Operators (ARO) with premises in Trafalgar Square.

One of his jobs was that of assistant editor of Roadway. During the war he became editor, when the then editor, Horace Wyatt, who had gone to Jersey, where his wife was ill, was interned by the Germans.

Later, Frank too became a guest of the Germans. He was called up, and joined the First Airborne Division. He was asked: "Like to see Rambouillet, Paris?". And that's how he found himself volunteering for a glider landing behind the lines — but when the Airborne drop came off the venue had moved on to Arnhem. He suffered a shrapnel wound in the leg and was captured.

Demobilised in 1946, he entered public relations. That was the time when three transport organisations — RHA, TRTA and PSVA — operated under the umbrella of the National Road Transport Association, and an anti-nationalisation campaign was in full swing, Looking back at that period, so crucial to transport, he says the campaign was haphazard — unco-ordinated. It was enthusiastic but doomed to failure. With the size of the Labour Party's Parliamentary majority there was no avoiding public ownership. .

"Nationalisation the way they did it, was an absolute disaster; a load of rubbish," he says, "although I must admit that, in common with nearly every common soldier, I intended to vote socialist."

At that time, he says, the Co-operative movement put pressure on the Government to be allowed to run its own fleet. The Act of Parliament did not nationalise own-account fleets, a sensible decision but one which did not help hauliers.

Traders who had never dreamed of running their own fleets then went ahead — so escaping the need to rely on State transport. We are still feeling the effects today.

Lesson? "If you're running a campaign you should organise it way back — we launched a petition without sufficient preparation. Although, as I said, with some industries nationalisation was inevitable, in view of the euphoria of abolishing class prejudice and so on."

In 1949 Frank became editor of Roadway and kept up a publicity campaign for the then Conservative Government to return the industry to private enterprise; a sizeable slice went back in 1953.

During the mid-60s Frank continued in the dual function of PRO/editor, until an ex CM editor, Arthur Sherlock Mesher, became editor of the RHA's journal, and Frank pressed on


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