Uneasy lies the head by Janus
Page 50
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0 NE conclusion emerges clearly from the Road Haulage Association's list of night parking places. The security problem which it is designed to help solve is as serious as ever. Only a handful of addresses on the list are classified as guarded, and even then the rating appears to be Over-generous.
No residue seems to have been left from the advice which the RHA's vehicle security committee issued to local authorities some years ago. The standards prescribed for guarding a lorry park at night were clear. At least one uniformed guard with a trained dog should be on duty. The park should be visited by mobile security squads at irregular intervals and contact should be maintained throughout the night by means of telephone calls.
IT would be interesting to know how many of the places on the new list even have a telephone number to which calls can be made. Apart from the security advantage, it would be useful to the attendant and especially to the lorry drivers. For this reason, it should preferably be coin-operated.
Advice was also given on the facilities for the attendant. He should have a hut or kiosk sited so as to give him a clear view of the gate. The structure should be wired for lighting and heating. It was even suggested that a point should be provided for an electric kettle, at any rate on parks which were kept open all round the clock.
It should be noted that a single gate or set of gates was envisaged to serve as both entrance and exit. The distance between the gateposts would therefore have to be at least 2011. The gates should be strong enough to withstand rough treatment.
Strength is an implied characteristic of many of the recommendations. Fences to be provided all round the park should be at least 6ft high and should be made of chain link on concrete posts which should themselves be sunk in concrete foundations. The fences should be crowned with a minimum of 12in. treble strand barbed wire. A concrete barrier at tailboard height is recommended as an additional protection in front of the posts.
THERE are also suggestions for providing proper hard standing. "On virgin ground," it is said, "there should be a minimum of 12in. clean hard core, well compacted and top dressed with either binding ash or tarmac." The surface should be regularly inspected, and small cracks should not be allowed to become fissures before any notice is taken of them.
Similar sound advice is given on lighting. Sodium lights are recommended, on steel poles set in concrete round the perimeter, with a suitable protective barrier in front of each pole. A central lighting column is also suggested to meet the problem of the shade thrown by lorries, especially those with high loads, ' Probably there is no single lorry park on 'which all these proposals have been put into effect or at any rate where they are still fully operative. They would certainly relieve much of the anxiety of operators and their drivers who find it necessary to leave overnight a vehicle with a valuable load. In such a case, even on the rare occasions when the security arrangements seem admirable, it is always advisable to seek the co-operation of the police.
pATROLS make a point of visiting lorry parks. This is just as well. Otherwise the thieves would merely regard the majority of the sites as convenient collecting centres for the vehicles out of which they make their living. The unguarded and ill-lit park is still a hazard that the operator would prefer to avoid.
The risks are of more than one kind. There have been recent reports of a growing problem in the trailer compounds at ferry terminals where apparently drivers prey on each other. The trouble may start when a trailer has a light missing. The loss may have occurred anywhere, possibly on the Continent.
In a well-conducted firm the driver would have spares in his cab and be able to make good the deficiency. With the remarkably rapid growth in roll-on-roll-off traffic the highest standards are not universally observed. If the driver has no replacement with him, or so it is alleged, he gives way to his first impulse and helps himself from the nearest suitable vehicle! As most old soldiers will remember, the habit is catching.
The theft of a light hardly sounds a spectacular crime, and this applies also to cases in which a driver removes a brake connection from another operator's trailer. because his own connection does not fit and he has no adaptor. Unfortunately, the operator and driver who have suffered the loss are put to considerable cost and inconvenience through the delay which is ' necessary before the damage can be repaired.
OPERATORS and their insurers are now discussing with the port authorities and the shipping companies concerned the problems and risks that arise when trailers are tampered with at the terminals. Naturally enough, neither the authorities not the companies an particularly eager to accept responsibility and therefore to provide the necessary supervision, although one or two of the companies have a reporting system which helps to establish whether the loss of damage has actually taken place on the British side of the Channel.
The insurers must be even more worried about what is happening, or at any rate easily can happen, at the ordinary inland vehicle parks during the night. While then may be a chance that the ports or the ferry services will acknowledge at least some liability for what happens within the dock area, the local authorities will never have s similar twinge of conscience about their owr lorry parks. Operators are expected to be grateful merely that the parks are provided.
SOME pressure at least can be brought to bear on the authorities. One reason for providing a park in the first place is that otherwise the vehicles would have to be left in the streets to the annoyance of the residents. From this point of view, the provision of the park becomes a municipa: service much the same as any other anc there can be criticism of the quality of the service.
Perhaps operators should have made more of this point in compiling their fist of night parking places. The general public car make little of the information that a certair town has three lorry parks and another five and that in some cases they are attendee and in others not. Some attempt might have been made at a grading system on the fines of the more famous guides to hotels, eatir4 places and even public lavatories.
One may be certain that an hotel takes notice if its guided constellation loses a stal or if it is given a bad report. Loca authorities might also sit up if it was statee that, let us say, a certain town had only one site for the parking of lorries at night situated on a mud flat, lit by one 60W bulb and three miles as the crow ffies from the nearest lodging house. If another town hac no facilities at all, this also might be recorded.
It would at least be interesting to see the reaction. The local Press, for one, jealous of the reputation of the community it serves and would be sure to comment on a particularly unfavourable notice Hauliers in the town would then have E better chance to press the claim for con sideration of visiting drivers who needed E resting place for themselves and theii vehicles which would be bringing the goods that the townsfolk required ant taking away the products which they had tc sell.