BIRD'S EYE VIEW BY THE HAWK
Page 22
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• The nerve of some people. The other day I was browsing through my favourite transatlantic transport mag, Transport Topics the upright journal of the American Trucking Associations, when I happened upon a piece that had me falling out of my nest,
'Ile reason for such feather ruffling? On the letters page was a message from one Fiona Cantwell, resident of Farnham, Surrey.
In it she praised the clean appearance of US trucks.
Ms Cantwell, it appears, has formulated this opinion after spending three weeks travell
• When self-employed landscape gardener Paul Richards popped home to collect some tools he got more than he bargained for as he tried to negotiate an un-manned level crossing.
Seconds later he was walking away unhurt from the wreckage of his V-reg Ford Transit after it was hit by a train on the freight line at Rhewderin, just outside Newport, Gwent.
Richards says he did not see any lights flashing as he took his van and trailer across the railway. "The next thing 1 knew the train's buffer was filling the passenger window. Then the van was being pushed along the track with me trapped inside," says Richards.
He managed to escape when the windscreen of his van burst out as the vehicle began to fold in around him. Luckily the train was only travelling at 16km/h (10mph) — but it still managed to flatten the van, and with it Paul's business.
"You don't get two chances like that in a lifetime," said Richards.
ing in America. According to her: "I can honestly say we did not see one dirty or even dusty truck".
So far so good, but then she adds: "Coming as we do from the UK, this seemed unbelievable, as the lorries over here are normally filthy. There is very little hope of knowing the real colour." Blasphemy. Outrage. Uproar. How dare she insult the honour of the Great British Haulier.
Having recently sat through the judging of CMs Livery Competition I can assure her that there are plenty of clean trucks around.
• Remember my tale of the mystery tacho discs dumped in the garden of CM's features Ed? (CM 9-15 August). Well, reader Martin Skipper (believe it or not, a keen amateur sailor) tells me of an even more unusual resting place for unwanted tacho records — the Irish Sea. Skipper, a former traffic police enforcement officer, found a bunch (what is the collective noun for tacho discs?) floating off the Cork coast. Incidentally, Skipper is the first winner of the Hawk's prize of a fiver for any titbits of gossip that I print. He has sportingly asked us to send it to his favourite charity, Ocean Youth Club in Gosport.
What's more, I have it on good authority that British operators are victims of a sinister American plot. At night, large dirt-laden clouds blow in from the US depositing tonnes of muck and grime on our normally pristine roads, which as any operator will tell you are cleaned every week by the Department of Transport.
Fortunately we plan to retaliate by sending blimps back across the water loaded with prime Cheshire loam.
On reaching the coast they will deposit said cargo on the nearest US truck, and serves them jolly well right.
• I am also indebted to another former policeman Fred Randall for the following snippet. He recalls being in court when a small defendant was before the bench on a charge of misbehaving on a bus. He asked the magistrate if he could be picked-up for this offence. A somewhat stuffy clerk assumed that what he meant was whether he could be arrested. However, the diminutive youth explained that he had been asked to leave the bus by a burly bobby. Upon refusing, the PC had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and taken him to the top of the stairs, and dropped him. Ouch. You have won a fiver Fred.