BIRDS EYE VIEW
Page 34
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BY THE HAWK
• Be careful, it's war out there. The stolid, respectable and dull streets of surburban Oxford have never seen its like. The bus battle is on.
Devon General's flamboyant, extrovert boss Harry Blundred has designs on Oxford's deregulated bus market and his high frequency minibuses have moved into the city's outskirts trying to win new business. Naturally enough, the City of Oxford bus company is none too keen on having a newcomer on the patch, and any sense of gentlemanly conduct seems to have flown out of the window.
It is the sort of environment Blundred thrives upon, and his office in Exeter — when he is there and not in Oxford — is constantly receiving reports of the latest skirmish. Drivers from one camp have been using their vehicles to block the route of their rival, leaflet girls have been "manhandled", time schedules are being altered to try and out-manoeuvre the opponent and there has even been the odd bout of fisticuffs.
The television companies have not been slow to report on the battling buses' threat to wake up the dreaming spires and Blundred, of course, has done a stint in front of the cameras. A passing City of Oxford driver even started haranguing him as he passed the interview taking place. It was all good grist to the mill.
Deregulation and the free market, we are told, are all about giving the customer plenty of choice and precisely what he or she wants. I SUPPOSE that excitement on the streets could come into that category but really, is it fare? Who knows? Anything that brings about a better service at a lower price has got to be just the ticket.
• It is a fact that London mobsters now refuse to rob any banks, post offices, building societies, etc, which are located on a London Transport bus route. This work-to-rule has arisen after villains Learned the crew and passengers of a No 14 London bus overpowered an armed raider in South Kensington last week. A Securicor guard was shot in the leg outside the Royal Bank of Scotland in Old Brompton Road as two robbers attempted to get the packages being exchanged between the guards and the bank.
A witness who was in a nearby shop said: "I heard shots and saw one of the men wearing a crash helmet running along the road. He was shooting wildly and some very brave people from the bus tried to hang on to him. The bus driver was very brave and helped to catch the man. He wrestled him to the ground and managed to hold him down".
All this may help deter some of those who consider it entertaining to assault London Regional Transport personnel.
• Commercial vehicles tend to come in some rather strange shapes, but none more so than the latest in carderived-pickups from Denmark and Norway.
Tax on commercial vehicles is much lower than that charged on passenger vehicles, and some strange behaviour has been resulting from this.
Last year crowds of Norwegians could be seen outside Porsche and Mercedes dealers in Hamburg, West Germany, tearing out the rear windows of their recently acquired vehicles, thus dodging • Two florists in Holland have devised an inspiring way of combining an FL10 and FL6 for transporting flowers.
In order to reduce the costs, especially fuel costs and road tax, the short haul delivery truck — in this case the FL6 — is transported on a drawbar trailer from the flower auction in Rijnsburg, Holland, to its destination in West Germany and then back again.
the higher rate of import tax. Savings could be as much as 220,000, but a spokesman for the Norwegian embassy says the practice "has been stopped."
This year, in an attempt to get round similar punitive taxation, a Copenhagen coachworks has created a pick-up version of the Mercedes 240 TD estate car, saving almost £10,000.
The Jaguar XJ-S CDV with its 2,190kg GVW, has a payload of 345kg, and an urban The tractive unit is an FL10 Interaxiler model, which does the work while at the same time taking the two drivers to the destination. The trailer is parked, the FL6 reversed off and the two drivers go their separate ways. Having completed their deliveries the two drivers meet up and drive home in the same manner as they came.
Say it with Volvos.
cycle fuel consumption of 15.2lit/1001un (18.6mpg) and costs 216,082.61 plus VAT. This makes it a poor contender when compared with the Reliant Fox van with a payload of 380kg, and a fuel consumption of 7lit/1001cm (39.56mpg) at a cost of V3,909 plus VAT.
• Here's a cheerful little number from Sweden. Specially built to carry heavy loads under remote control in the hostile environment of a nuclear establishment this Scheuerle transporter can also be driven manually. Dual diesel/electric drive is used for the hydrostatic transmission system to six of the seven axles. The small circular "lights" at the front of the cab are ultrasonic sensors to detect obstructions or other hazards.