In Search of Justice
Page 30
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REVISED regulations intended to make the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition fairer to all contestants are now under review. One of the difficulties is to find a satisfactory way of classifying articulated outfits. Last year's system, based on the weight of the tractor, has been criticized as arbitrary and two other methods are to be investigated.
One is based on overall length and the other, which is more complicated, on a combination of weight and length. Possibly an equitable solution might be found , in classifying articulated outfits by wheelbase. That is a matter for the national organizing committee to decide.
If complete justice were to be done to every entrant there would be so many categories that only one or two competitors would be eligible for each and the contest would become impossible. The most that the promoters can do is to consider complaints carefully and try to eradicate the worst. The process must inevitably be gradual, but in two or three years it should be possible to produce regulations that will give broad satisfaction to everyone. • One of the problems exercising the minds of the organizers is the unfair advantage that drivers of platform lorries have over others in reversing tests. It has been proposed that every platform vehicle should be equipped with a superstructure that would prevent the driver from having a direct view of the near-side rear corner of the body. This is counsel of perfection, but the difficulties in putting it into practice would be severe. The compromise of blacking out windows giving a view to the rear is probably the hest that can be devised.
There is urgent need for an emphatic statement of the unimportance of speed in the competition. Many entrants last year were misled into believing that they were taking part in a race and the quality of driving suffered. Time is, in fact, taken into account only in the event of a tie. This point cannot be too clearly understood.
Several new centres are expected to be established this year and, as it rightly deserves, the competition is becoming an outstanding event in the road transport calendar. If Scotland would sink its national pride and join the English contest, it would be to the advantage of all concerned.