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Page 34
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view by the Hawk
• All the Hs
Geoff Hallam, managing director of Humber McVeigh Transport Ltd, took time off for his annual "press call" in London last week and was still fuming over the Commons motion on vehicle weights. Indeed, he had sent a 100-word telegram to his MP, Tony Crosland, who had led for the Opposition in the debate and also to the Tory MP for Louth, Geoffrey Archer, who is believed to have been a signatory to the motion opposing the increased weights. I wonder how many operators took as much trouble?
But then Geoff is a man for detail. Recently he set up a Dutch company which he is calling Holland Transport, and is at this moment in the process of establishing another in Eire which he is calling Hibernian Transport. I believe he would have started one in Scotland but couldn't find a suitable H. By way of singing for my supper I offer him, free of charge, Hadrian Transport.
• Modern Vikings
The job of an international haulage driver has a lot of attractions but I have always thought that — for British-based men at least — the wintry roughness of the Channel or North Sea would really take the shine off the job, especially if one was not a very good sailor.
Maybe that was a pessimistic view. Travelling in the past week from Southampton to Le Havre in Viking I and from Calais to Dover in Free Enterprise V in the foulest of weather, I never had the slightest turn tremor; obviously the money spent by Townsend Thoresen on stabilizers is a worthwhile investment.
• Gendarmes magnifiques
There were these three lorries. A Saviem, a Berliet and a Unic and all had been to London with Continental foods to supplement our Christmas diet. There they were making for home in the busy rush-hour traffic of a Monday morning. Travelling nose to tail through the village of Bexley they were occupying close on a hundred yards of road space at a top speed of about 10 km per hour when up came the law!
But not, as you might suspect, to book the foreigners, merely to make a friendly enquiry as to their destination and then point them in the direction of the motorway. This approach, and not bloodymindedness, will solve problems rather than create them.
• Balloon man
Last September hundreds of balloons were released at Bramcote by Goodyear at the Final of the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition. A prize was offered to the person whose balloon went farthest, and it has been won this week by a Coventry man, Peter Bennett, whose entry was found near Horsham in Sussex.
With the wind gusting outside the office window this week at about strength force 12, that 200 miles in three months seems a pretty slow rate of travel.
• Something fishy
Not since the Jacobite rising has there been such inflammatory talk up in Lochaber, where the district council declared war on heavy vehicles last week. The offending lorries are those which carry fish along A830 between Mallaig and Inverlochy.
Drivers are accused of speeding, driving in tightly packed convoys and spreading bree — salty, scaly, slime — over the roads. The council have called for special police patrols along the road, but surely Councillor McInnes was going just a wee bit too far when he said: "It's time for the police to get bloodyminded".
Maybe the council should think instead about improving the road — after all, many of the people of Lochaber depend on the fishing industry for their livelihood.
• Prestige
It's a long time since I saw much of Tom Dawson, who used to run Leyland's commercial vehicle publicity and with whom I once spent many an hour at Continental shows (and Continental shows, if you know what I mean).
Now I see that he is named as editor of a lush new prestige brochure, running tc 100 pages, which British Leyland ha produced in full colour.
Called The World of British Leyland i devotes a sizeable amount — as is right an proper — to the truck and bus division though to my surprise it shows little of till very advanced techniques used at Lillyhal to build the National bus.
The most impressive page depicts iv vehicles at all — just coloured discs divide, to show the shares of the UK sales "cake' — with BLMC claiming 39 per cent a , commercial vehicles over five tons, 36.8 pe cent of commercials under five tons and 40., per cent of the cars.
• Mixed doubles
Over in France recently I was hearir about some of the ways in which Continent operators get round the hours regulations quite apart, of course, from simply ignorir them. One dodge, it seems, adopted by snu outfits is to carry the wife in the cab, tl good lady being equipped with the apprl priate driving licence.
Hubby does all the driving, but tl records show that it has been shared, so tl 280-mile daily limit can be exceedo Madame can also keep an eye on hub' cruising round the Continent with a sleep cab.