'Train danger-load drivers'
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• Calls have been made to roads and traffic minister Peter Bottomley for drivers hauling explosives to receive the same training as their continental counterparts. Such is the low standard of training in this country that British trucks carrying explosives are prohibited from travelling in Holland and Gerrnany without an authorised national on board.
In a message to Bottomley Dorset-based EC Transport director Ian Rycroft says: "The view in Europe is that the UK competent authority (Department of Transport) must design and authorise a course of instruction acceptable to other contracting states of the ADR agreement (International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road).
"Concerning a haulier moving ammunition from a US military post in Wales, you have made a firm commitment regarding the training of drivers who carry such items on UK roads. It is not clear if this training will be acceptable to our European neighbours — perhaps we shall have to send our staff on one course for UK and another for Europe?"
Commercial Motor (21-27 April) reported Bottomley as saying that the rules for transporting explosives by road would be updated in the summer. This would include up-todate co-ordinated controls to cover all aspects of the movement of explosives by road, including the transport of ammunition. The rules would deal with such matters as the marking of vehicles, training and instruction, and what to do in an accident. "It has seemed in the past," writes Rycroft, "that the reaction of officials in your department and the Health and Safety Executive has been that since the carriage of such cargo forms such a small part of the overall transport scene in Europe that it is a matter of every man for himself. We have tried to send our men to courses in Holland and West Germany as suggested by your officials, but this has proved unacceptable to European transport administrators."
The Department of Transport is unwilling to comment.