Michelin Trying to Meet Demand
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THE report of Mr. A. IL Carter's remarks concerning.
the availability of wire-cord tyres (January 15) makes us feel, that a little background information might help to put readers in the picture on this question. Steel-cord tyres, as we prefer to call them, are certainly " freely " available in the sense that we market a comprehensive range of sizes and types in precisely the same way as we do other tyres. But even after 11 years of planned production we still have not been able to make enough giant X tyres to meet the demand.
To make matters worse—in one sense, anyway—MI has begun to demonstrate its need for steel-cord giant tyres. Another point is that not all X tyres produced can go to the replacement market; the demand from vehicle manufacturers is quite insistent. But steps are being taken to ease matters.
We are building another factory at Burnley, and this will soon start producing X giant tyres. Meanwhile, production from our Stoke-on-Trent factory is being increased all the time. We have also issued licences. to produce both car and giant tyres of X design and construction (although not under that name) to three other tyre makers in Great Britain.
London, S.W.3. F. GARNIER, General Sales Manager, Michelin Tyre Co., Ltd.
Pioneers of Light 2,000-gal. Tankers
wiTE should like to repudiate the claim of the Mobil Oil " Co., Ltd. (The Commercial Afotor, January 22), to be the first operators of 2,000-gal. four-compartment allproduct tanks mounted to 7-ton chassis. We suggest that we were the first to run such tankers. They were based on Thames Trader 7-ton chassis and were introduced on April 1, 1958.
Eccles. J. D. KAY, A,I.R.T.E.,
Transport Manager, Isherwood's Petrol Co., Ltd.
[The Mobil Oil Co., Ltd., claimed merely to have been the first operators of 2.000-gal four-compartment all-product tankers based on B.M.C. chassis. They did not include other makes of chassis—ED.]
Shadow Boxing on Wages
COMMENTING on recent statistics of public road passenger transport (January 29), you referred to the new claim by the unions for a wage increase of £1 per week for busmen following frequent and substantial wage awards. In the eagerness with which both sides press their claims B32
for the necessity, or, alternatively, the impossibility of such awards, I suggest a most undesirable development is taking place almost imperceptibly in our industrial fife which, m total, must account for an incredible number of non-productive hours.
I refer to what can only be described as the most blatant shadow boxing by both antagonists. For example, employers' representatives will fight strenuously against any addition to basic wages, with the full knowledge that their own staff may well be receiving double such amounts as gross total weekly wages. Trade union representatives, on the other hand, insist on academic reductions of basic Weekly hours, whilst well aware that in reality their members prefer jobs with plenty of overtime.
Bolton. ONLOOKER.
Operators Dispute Official Figures
E have been convicted for using a vehicle with an
inefficient hand brake. Our loaded vehicle was tested by a Ministry of Transport examiner, not on an incline, but on level road, when the driver was told to pull up from 20 m.p.h. using only his hand brake. On telling the driver to stop, the examiner threw a case out of the near-side window and measured the distance from where the case was found to the point where the vehicle stopped. The distance by this rough-and-ready method was 90 ft.
Although a technical representative from the manufacturers maintained that on test, when new, this type of vehicle, loaded, stopped in 75 ft. on the hand brake only from 20 m.p.h., and that this was efficient, the Ministry examiner contended that 54 ft. was the maximum distance that could be allowed. This figure, he argued, had been agreed between the Ministry and the trade.
At an adjourned hearing a senior vehicle examiner gave evidence and repeated that any distance over 54 ft. was regarded by the Ministry as excessive. This degree of efficiency, he said, was just sufficient to hold a vehicle on a 1-in-4 gradient and the standard had been accepted for many years. Was he correct?
Pontefract. MERCHANT.
[The. stopping distance obtained by the vehicle examiner is equivalent to a braking efficiency of only 15 per cent., which is hardly acceptable for any vehicle, whether laden or otherwise. The distance of 54 ft. equals about 25 per cent. efficiency, which is reasonable. A series of articles on the work of Ministry of Transport examiners, published by The Commercial Motor last year, indicated that examiners in the West Midland Area expected about 30 per cent, from a hand brake applied at 20 m.p.h. It is difficult to believe that the manufacturers of " Merchant's " vehicles regard a stopping distance of 75 ft. from 20 m.p.h. (18 per cent, efficiency) as satisfactory.—ED1