BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 30
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BY THE HAWK
• A 125-year birthday party is planned for mid-June in Ulm to commemorate the foundation in 1864 by CD Magirus of a factory making fire escape ladders, a speciality which later took the company into a leading position in world markets.
The first three-tonne truck chassis for which the company is now best known, was built in 1916 but at the beginning of the century the Ulm-based company was busy turning out special equipment for the Kaiser's army.
This included mobile observation and lighting towers incorporating the technology and experience gained in the manufacture of fire-fighting gear.
In the same period Magirus also developed and built the • America is the land of the free, home of the brave, and consumer of enormous quantities of drugs — and US truck stops have not been immune from the drugs scourge. Senator John C Danforth, a Republican from Montana, is proposing the creation of drug-free zones around truck stops in a new truck safety bill. first mobile field kitchens, a concept which the German army still uses to-day.
Shortly after the introduction of the first truck model, Magirus designed an 18-passenger bus, 10 of which were supplied to the Wurttemberg postal administration.
Railway goods wagons were built at the Ulm factory in the period following the First World War, while in the early 1960s the company's Berlin branch was involved in the production of radio masts, threewheeled street sweepers and aircraft tractors.
Merrymaking at the Ulm plant will include the official opening of a new test track equipped to carry out much of the proving work formerly done on public roads.
The US Congress set up drug-free zones around schools last year and Danforth wants the same treatment for truck stops. His legislation would double penalties for those convicted of distributing illegal drugs near truckstops. • Shell is launching a campaign to get us to dispose of used motor oil without polluting the environment. The key to the campaign is the iglooshaped Supercan, being installed at three Shell filling stations on a trial basis. The used oil will be recycled.
its feet, I did not know she meant it would be quicker walking rather than travelling by public transport or by road in the capital," quipped shadow transport spokesman John Prescott at last week's Road Haulage Association Tipcon conference.
• Chumps — careless and highly undisciplined male pedestrians — are one of the main hazards on the road, according to a recent Gallup poll. Apparently, these 13-24year-old males are guilty of "irresponsible and reckless behaviour". As pedestrians, they ignore traffic signals and jaywalk, sometimes when one over the eight. The Hawk — a perennially youthful male — refutes any such charge.
• Bored of ringing up the cricket scores only to find the game rained off? Fed up of dialling those Sexy Susan and Pouting Pandora numbers? Or perhaps you have lost interest in the predictable weather reports? Well, don't despair, a new telephone service has just been launched which guarantees fun, fun, fun every call.
Those modest chaps at Eurotunnel are obviously very pleased with their tunnel building abilities and are now providing tunnelling progress reports on a pre-recorded telephone message system. Suggestions on what mega transport personality should be hired as the speaking tunnel should be sent to The Hawk. • But what happens when they go wrong, most operators will ask when faced with sophisticated electronic systems on vehicles? Manufacturers point to the aerospace, and the passenger car industries, as examples of reliable electronics in use. "Limp-home" features are put forward as an answer, or "fail-safe" systems that revert to normal settings.
Well, the Hawk can tell you all that is his experience of electrical malfunction on motorways it is definitely not "failsafe", and "limp-home" means being on the back of an AA recovery vehicle.
The marque of the vehicle in question shall remain nameless, except that it is British in origin and has only 3,0001cm on the clock. The black box electronics failed and, after coasting onto the hard shoulder of the motorway, the car remained there until assistance arrived.
Talk about helpless. The Hawk can usually summon up enough mechanical knowhow to work out which bit of a conventional contact point-based ignition system is at fault. Even if the correct part cannot be found, there is usually some sort of alternative that will make do. When a black box decides to take early retirement, however, the only alternative is shanks pony, and it's a long way to CM's offices from Stoke-on-Trent. Even the AA man was at a loss, and the car was carried unceremoniously home hours later.