otatiet mem
Page 19
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
S interested to read the :le by -The Hawk.about attitude of pop musicians 3rds their hired vehicle, h although intended to be iorous, does nevertheless .:1-1 upon something which is Dming a matter of concern 3 rofessional drivers.
am referring, of course, to growing tendency of heavy icle manufacturers, ticularly Continental ones, to oon the dashboard of their icles with warning lights of ry description, some of ch, amazingly, are alight all time — even when there is malfunction.
Perhaps the best example of ; kind of stupidity is the use og lamp switches which le with a bright blue light en they are in the "on;ition; surely, the very last traction which a driver needs
when concentrating on the road ahead, especially bad visibility!
Now we are beginning to see lights behind the heater controls, lights to, show where the ash-tray is, and lights which serve no apparent purpose other than to cause distraction.
The contract electrician who works for my employer looks forward with unashamed delight to the growth of these trends. His van is already stuffed full of relays, solenoids and regulator switches of all sorts in order to keep pace with the inevitable electrical faults that follow in the wake of unnecessary complication.
Another development which I personally deprecate is making the cab of each new model wider than the one it supersedes. We have now, in fact, got to the stage that some cabs are so wide that special skinny and ineffective mirrors have to be fitted to keep within legal width limits.
Surely, even with a sleeper cab, it is not necessary for the bunk to be more than 6ft 6in long, and it is interesting to note that in at least two of these ultra-wide designs which I have recently driven, there is less leg-room than in their predecessors.
I think that it is significant, in the light of what I have written, that those of our drivers who were recently allocated Leyland Marathons (which by all standards are fairly basic vehicles), after a little initial grousing, will not now hear of any suggestions that they should be given one of the latest and most trendy Continentals.
E. G. CORKE, Balmoral Gardens, London W13.