The week
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Slipping througt4 the test net?
SPOT CHECK REVEALS UN PLATED, UNTESTED VEHICLES IN POOR CONDITION
by Ron Cater • Nearly half of the 49 vehicles stopped during a Ministry of Transport Eastern traffic area roadside check on Al near Biggleswade on Monday were issued with GV9s. Of these prohibitions, 11 were immediate and 13 delayed.
Ministry men on the spot told me that the check was aimed at vehicles which should already have been plated and tested, and the vehicles pulled off the road for examination were selected with a view to their age and category. Yet, despite the intensity of the check, not one plated vehicle was among those pulled in.
It was significant, however, that nearly every vehicle examined was due to undergo plating and testing before next Tuesday (April 1); it would be very illuminating to find out just how many of them do.
The Biggleswade check was one of several scheduled for this week, in which the Eastern area was making its first concentrated series of roadside examinations since the introduction of the plating and testing scheme.
Speaking of the results, Mr. J. Clifford —the area mechanical engineer in charge of the check—said that they were rather worse than usual but it was likely that the extreme weather conditions had curtailed Ministry activity sufficiently during recent months to lull operators into a false sense of security. Of the vehicles that passed through the vehicle examiners' hands several, in my opinion, showed signs of blatant disregard for the safety of the general public, or indeed the driver.
One vehicle among those towed away had the following defects: a mixed bag of tyres, all in excellent condition but with cross-plies and radials paired on the oscillating axles of the semi-trailer and the twins of the tractive unit. The inner brakes were seized and totally ineffective on the trailer, while the handbrake had obviously been out of action for many moons. The whole of the brake linkage was seriously worn to the extent that it could easily have fallen apart. On the tractive unit the handbrake was ineffective and not able to produce any reading on a Tapley meter. Although carrying only around I ton payload it was difficult to produce 45 per cent with the service brake, operative on the tractive unit only.
When the traffic inspector present at the check examined the vehicles' licences he found none pertaining to the tractive unit and the driver was not in possession of a logsheet.
A second machine revealed a considerable number of defects, which included a broken front spring, badly worn track-rod ends, prop-shaft centre bearing adrift, no rear lights on nearside and half-shafts loose. The vehicle had an uncared-for appearance.
Yet another lorry, this time a tipper sporting a third-axle conversion, appeared on the scene in an appalling condition. Like many of the drivers involved in the check, this vehicle's handler claimed that it was due for scrapping at the end of this month, but despite the serious nature of the defects revealed he seemed to treat the whole thing as a huge joke.
When I asked him whether he thought it good sense to drive a machine in such a dangerous condition his reply was one I've heard all too often. "Well, I have a wife and kids and if I say I won't drive it the boss will give me my cards and I can't afford to be out of a graft."
On this machine one of the brake fluid reservoirs—tied on with a piece of baling wire—came adrift in my band. Needless to
t was bone dry.
Found it significant that of the heavy :ing vehicles stopped, none received imate stop notices. And the one ownerr stopped—driving a very well-preservhames Trader—passed through with a nendation from the examiner.
uring the check the traffic inspector xl up two vehicles being used outside licence conditions and two drivers with rect logsheets. He considered that this red a healthy state of affairs from the c office's point of view.
rie delayed GV9 issued before lunch returned for clearance and cleared durhe afternoon.