Bird's Eye View By The Hawk
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Needless Waste
NAANY of us fume when we get held up at traffic lights, IVA particularly the exasperating variety employed by contractors, which seem to be specially timed to ensure maximum delays to road traffic. And you may be forgiven for breathing black smoke if you are a transport user and almost all your vehicles are stopped at one point several times a day, More annoying than average in this connection are the lights on the bridge at Keadby, near Scunthorpe, where the overhead steelwork is being renewed to give greater headroom. Traffic in both directions on the busy Doncaster-Scunthorpe road is stopped for five minutes while a little group of men goes to work, then the two streams are let go separately.
Man of Action
I N one of the queues, a couple 'of weeks ago, was Mr. J. W. Roberts, managing director of Jet Petroleum, Ltd., who in the A 30
past has made many inquiries about the progress of the work, which he reckons costs his company 00 a day in delays, or some i10,000 so far.
The lights on both sides were red and the workmen seemed to be doing nothing, so he told his driver to cross. There were angry words, and the number of his car was taken and reported to the police. Last Thursday, after receiving a notice of intended prosecution, Mr. Roberts told me he hopes he does get a summons.
"I'll subpcena the Minister of Transport to explain why the work is taking so long," he said.
The modifications have been in progress since the spring and Mr. Roberts has been pressing for a speed-up in the work since fast June.
Wrong Party
S. C. BOND, president of the Traders Road Transport Association, was a trifle anxious on Monday when some of the principal guests were late in arriving at the Association's annual dinner and dance at Grosvenor House, London. The answer was simple—they had gone to a charity ball by mistake. But they made up for lost time when they finally sorted themselves out and everyone voted it a highly successful evening.
Sportsmen
LONDON busmen have accepted London Transport's offer La of an increase in basic wages of las. a week and an extra 7s. a week in allowances, which, allowing for overtime, will raise their pay by an average of 28s. 7d. a week. Jolly sporting of them.
naked Out
HE representative who reported the Clean Air Conference at Harrogate (The Commercial Motor, October 14) must e been overcome by diesel fumes, because he thought that . Peter Yorke, director of the British Omnibus Companies' )lic Relations Committee, said that the elimination of black ike was appallingly expensive. I am sure nobody would ect Mr: Yorke to make such a fatuous remark. What he I was that the black smoke itself was appallingly expensive, eh everyone should know.
ee Advice
1-1E railways cannot claim to be without good advice. The Transport Tribunal are at hand to tell them what they charge and the Transport Users' Consultative Committees t partly to tell them what services they ought to run. The Ilebaud Committee was set up to tell them how much
should paY their workers and the Stedeford Committee shortly advise them bow they should organize themselves. ow a "compact study group," headed by the Minister of nsport, has been formed to tell them how much they lot spend. There is a lot to be said for being a haulier.
iers Explain
-IAT well-known personality "a London Transport spokesman " telephoned me after reading my October 21 contrion. I mentioned that they had asked £100,000 for a i of an acre in Poplar. My friend the spokesman asks me iy that the land has a fully equipped bus garage on it.
h, it makes a difference, doesn't it? Of course, there's no -antee around London that, even if you buy a bus garage, can run the buses. You have to get permission first from