bird's eye
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viewby the Hawk • Round the bend Have you seen the "British Leyland — The Champions of Road Transport" advertisements? The first appeared, as forecast by CM, in the Financial Times and was right smack on the button in taking the argument into the railway camp. Underneath that now over-familiar picture of twin electrified railway tracks disappearing into the empty distance was the caption: "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Too bad your factory is around the corner."
The copy then went on to sing the praises of road transport flexibility, and to defend it environmentally.
Thank goodness someone of stature has at last launched a national publicity campaign for road transport. There's been plenty of talk but precious little action 30 far elsewhere.
• Unsighted
Calking of road transport's image, the ndustry really is going to have to do ;omething about the spray from commercial /chides, especially on motorways. It sn't a problem that can be overcome with nudflaps, as the real problem is the dde-spray.
Anyone who has travelled in the wet on v11 or M6 in particular will know that the ncreasing volume and — perhaps iignificantly — speed of trucks is giving ise to blinding clouds of spray being thrown 'cross the adjacent lane or lanes. In innoyance value I'd say that spray has tplaced smoke, and overtaking in a car in a really wet day can be quite hazardous.
The situation is worse than it need have ieen because of the shockingly poor drainage if large sections of motorway — the water ust seems to lie where it falls.
Can designers, perhaps, start thinking "bout new lines of approach, such as side ralances over wheels? I know the Transport ind Road Research Laboratory has looked Lt lorry spray repeatedly over the years. 'erhaps they'll tell us whether they've cached any constructive conclusions. 3ertainly, now that punctures are becoming are, wheel valances would not be a material ,bstruction to wheel-changing. But perhaps
they'd contribute to overheated brakes — and in turn to leaky oil seals; and maybe less attention to wheel and tyre servicing anyway.
There are some classes of vehicle whose spray characteristics are outstandingly bad — in my experience the worst are low-loaders with four rear wheels in line and knock-out axles, partly because the often-rudimentary mudwings become pushed out of Line with the wheels.