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inter two hgv, stage right
4STS of burden or draught, ging from elephants to don's, are not uncommon on the aratic stage but it takes ingety, technical rather than artisto introduce a couple of big :tors: Volvo marketing flair o helps.
-wo Volvo F7 tractors, minus raneous gear, were squeezed to the stage at the Theatre yal, Glasgow, to announce a al that will save hard-pressed Yttish Opera about £15,000 a 3r in transport costs. Through generosity of Volvo Trucks 3) and Ailsa Trucks (Northern) opera company was able to y one of the tractors for 0,000, instead of about 5,000, and the other is being 3nsored. They will work with ht semi-trailers, five of which operated on contract with Glasgow Hiring Co.
The season's programme calls 155 performances of 17 proctions at 36 places in Britain I on the Continent. That ans an awful lot of fast but 'eful loading and unloading, art from about 40,000 miles of ye I.
You know my lethod Watson
OSE who drive too close to vehicle in front are more ly to have accidents than )se who don't. This astonling deduction has been made lm investigations by two Gen)l Motors research scientists, Leonard Evans and Dr Paul asielewski.
stupidity at the wheel has also en shown to be connected th traffic offences. Life is full of rprises. The worthy doctors i-i now devote their energies to .3 more difficult task of proving lt the earth is round.
am more concerned with an restigation at Aston Univer
sity, Birmingham, of the problem of bright sun shining directly on traffic lights so that it is impossible to know which signal is illuminated. Britain is not noted for sunshine but drivers will continue to be exposed to a serious danger that they cannot prevent until glare can be eliminated.
"May I just make one very serious comment," boomed the towering, foreboding Bert Neely, an RHA vice-chairman, at the West Midland area dinner. "Tonight is a Friday night ..." Suddenly the stark horror of his message flashed through everyone's mind. It would soon be Saturday.
IFSWLCSWEC — beat that
THE MORE obscure an organisation, the longer and more unlikely its title, and consequently its initials, often seem to be. Can anyone beat IFSWLCSWEC, which stands for International Federation of Social Workers' Liaison Committee of Social Workers in the European Community?
This may be nothing in the life of a silicon chip but an organisation in an industry developing as fast as social welfare cannot afford to be left behind by its own title.
The odds are unfavourable
I AM NOT surprised that there should be strong local opposition to a scheme to convert a 160-acre farm near Fakenham, Norfolk, into what has been described as a /lorry racing track. The grandiose plan is expected to cost about £3 million.
According to the Eastern Daily Press, "projected activities include competitive heavy goods vehicle meetings, hgv trials and testing, hgv sales and maintenance, driver training, vehicle and road research, and light commercial vehicle competitions."
It would be an ideal place for tipper drivers to slog it out. They should not, however, be confused with the natterjack toads that, it is alleged, would be disturbed by the site.
But the proposed events there. would hardly compare with the three-day Argungu rally in Nigeria, in which a Leyland Landtrain truck won its class and finished fifth overall after covering some 1,100 miles. It is a tough country's toughest motor-sport event.
Alhaji Chanchangi, one of Nigeria's private operators, sponsored the Landtrain. The prize of about £1,000 has been given to an orphanage in lbadan, where the Leyland factory is located.
Springtime transport
LAST year's Spring Transport Festival was so successful that this year's event at the Museum of Transport, Cheetham, Manchester, has been extended to cover the weekend of April 4-5. A wide variety of attractions will include a 70ft-long double-track display of 0-gauge trams with at least a dozen vehicles working. This should be great fun.
There will also be a model bus competition. Visitors will be able to enjoy a good scratch at a flea market and desport themselves to the GMT brass band, playing, of course, in strict Greenwich Mean Time a la Victor Sylvester.
At 50p for adults and 25p for children and pensioners, the festival should be good value.
There were some puce faces in a Philadelphia security company's headquarters when one of its vans arrived minus some £540,000. The rear door flew open when the vehicle ran over a pothole, ejecting the money in two sacks almost literally into the arms of two men in a car.
The security firm has offered a £22,000 reward for the recovery of the money. It might have been cheaper to mend the road or fit a better lock. The driver may have had some questions to answer, too.