Dird's Eye View
Page 56
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
A moving tale...
I see Yorkshire PTE is getting into hot water. The trouble is disturbance allowances for staff at Rotherham who are having to move office. The 20 members of the office staff will receive £100 each in disturbance payments and everyone, it appears, is up in arms. The Ratepayers Group, the Tory Party, the Labour Party, the South Yorkshire County Council Transport Committee are all opposed to the deal. If all that lot are against it, who is for it? Well, quite apart from the disturbed clerks apparently NALGO and the PTE are also for it.
The matter has been referred to Environment Secretary, Peter Shore, though what it could have to do with him I can't imagine, and neither could Peter. It is now being referred to Denis Healey, where I suspect it will also meet a stone waller.
But why all the protest you ask? Surely £100 is not over the odds for a disturbance allowance. Extra fares, extra travelling time, perhaps removal expenses, new school uniforms, £100 goes nowhere these days.
Ah well, I should tell you the Rotherham 20 are being asked to travel to a new office 50 yards from their old one. This, together with a similar allowance for a 600 yards disturbance paid recently to 70 'Sheffield staff, adds up to £9,000 that someone is going to have to find. Guess who?
Rallying
round...
All that disturbance trouble at the PTE is not going to interfere with the activities of the South Yorkshire Transport Society. The Society and the Councy Council have their plans for this year's rally well advanced.
It takes place on September 25 — a Sunday — with a 50-mile road route from Barnsley to Sheffield via Doncaster and Rotherham.
Over 10,000 people attended the last two rallies where there were more than 200 entries. David Tummon the secretary tells me they are ready now to receive 1977 entries. Now I know I keep saying I'm not much of an old vehicle enthusiast but this really is not just for the old 'uns. Operators of commercial vehicles and buses will find classes for them to enter, and David at 318c Millhouses Lane, Sheffield 511 9J D will be happy to tell you more.
AA finds short cuts...
The new AA Greater London atlas is a winner. Where else could you find London's -back double'' short cuts so clearly laid out? The big trouble is, somebody at County Hall is liable to use it as a handy reference on which ones to close first. Which reminds me — one of the Telegraph Hill barriers came to grief again last week!
But back to the AA guide — it covers an area of 1,575 square miles bounded by Welwyn Garden City, Brentwood, Guildford, Windsor and Gravesend. Although principally designed for motorists, it could prove invaluable to local delivery drivers.
The maps are large but perfectly manageable; the street index is comprehensive and should that not be enough you can always ask a policeman, at one of the 250 police stations listed in its pages.
The book costs £8.95 from bookshops or £8.50 including_ postage from AA offices for AA members.
The tacho torture terror...
The Ancient Chinese reputation for being the world's leaders in the art of torture is under challenge. Not from any of their fellow Orientals, not from those shadowy figures of the KGB or CIA or the wild tribesmen of Turkestan or Chad.
Would you believe it, it's here at home. On what do I base my premise? I'll tell you.
This month, a car magazine has published a two-page feature on tachographs but not about their use in hgvs. They are suggesting that they could be used in private cars and the evidence of the chart could be used as prosecution evidence in court.
The author has the good grace to point out that no-one has yet suggested their use, but points out that the matter might be under consideration in both Whitehall and Brussels.
"After all" he says "what is sauce for the hgv goose can so easily become sauce for the private car gander."
Now if you want an idea to be considered, I know of no better way than to get it into print.
Anyway the hgv goose is still resisting the sauce. So why should the motorist wish it on himself?
A lesson in PR...
I wonder if it came as a great surprise to the Scania public relations people in Britain to find that new company was pitching for the account. They've even been to the factory at Sodertalje and on a conducted tour of the production line. We, and they, will require to wait until next Tuesday to hear if the deal goes through. That's when Yorkshire TV screens the next episode of "This Year, Last Year." Frankly I don't think it will materialise because the man chasing the account has taken his ex-partner's wife with him to Sweden posing as his secretary, the ex-partner has turned up, the wife has taken an overdose — is life really that complicated?
Anyway, even the liberated Swedes won't go in for that kind of mix up I'm sure. But what a smart bit of real PR to get the Saab Scania office block, the conducted tour bit and a full frontal of the latest Scania commercial vehicle on the box at a peak viewing time. They don't need a new PR man!
• The Hawk