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Bird's eye view
Page 79
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by the Hawk
* Newest profession?
Haulier-neighbours of Harris Haulage (Grays) Ltd., Essex, have grim faces after seeing Harris's latest Scania with the message "professional haulier" among the signwriting on the cab.
"When are we going to be professional hauliers, boss?" one driver is reported to have kidded his employer, a Harris rival. Apparently, fellow hauliers see the Harris slogan as an innuendo reflecting on their own reputations.
But John Harris, boss of Harris Haulage, is thinking of the standing of haulage in the eyes of the public, I understand. His point is that staying in haulage these days does indeed require a high standard of professionalism. I'm a professional haulier, is Mr. Harris's view, and I'm going to tell the public so. Good for you, John Harris.
* Angling
There must be something in the Eastern air, because that word "professional" turns up again in the latest literature from Silver Roadways, headquartered at Bermondsey, and East Anglian Carriers, based in East London and operating from Norwich and Braintree too.
Silver Roadways, which has depots all round the country, is using "reliability and professionalism" ai key words in a very colourful brochure designed to attract customers; this Tate and Lyle company is really shifting some goods these days—at the rate of about 3m tons a year with a vehicle carrying capacity of 6,000 tons. Somebody say productivity?
Directors Tom Rice and John Toohey have signed the East Anglian Carriers document, which is a letter cannily contrived to strike a chill in the hearts of traders carry ing their own smalls. It mentions such evocative, and probably mysterious, things as plating and testing, operators' licensing, h.g.v. driving licences, TMLs and cuts in drivers' hours. And suggests that "we, the professionals . . . and leaders in our industry . . . can relieve you of these responsibilities."
They're not the first to take that approach, but I fancy it may prove a winner in the present atmosphere.
Nice to see hauliers pushing the professional angle—and backing it with service to match, I trust.
* Pinta champa?
"Mrs. Smith performed the ceremony", says a press notice, "with a bottle of champagne and the words 'I name this vehicle Cabac and may she bring prosperity and ease of labour to the Dairy Trade and prove worthy of the skills and abilities of those who have laboured to produce her'."
Wife of Douglas Smith, managing director of Smith's Electric Vehicles Ltd., Gateshead, Mrs. Smith was naming the new dairy vehicle, described in CM May 16, on its appearance at the National Co-operative Traffic Managers Blackpool conference.
* Confession
L. H. Smith, general manager of Leicester City Transport, was the bravest man at the PTA conference last week. He admitted publicly that his family ran four cars and a motor scooter—the sort of heresy that merits "Busman tells all" headlines. But don't jump to plutocratic conclusions. Three of the cars belong to his children aged 19 to 27, and he pointed out that in each case one of their first ambitions was to have their own car. Which is a measure of the sort of competition tomorrow's busmen have to meet.
He also remarked that he could do with some more parking space at the depot to cope with the cars of platform staff—a comment I've heard from several managers. All of which pales into insignificance compared with Prof. Kolbuszewski's conference forecast of 44m cars in the UK by AD2000.
* Jumbo at work
I had an invitation to an event last week at which I was assured 1 could "get some very unusual photographs". No, it wasn't like that at all. Wessex Industries had put their heads together with Chipperfields to produce what they called Britain's first commercial circus.
The idea is that clowns, acrobats, jugglers, chimps and elephants use fork-lift trucks and industrial tow-tractors as part of their acts, putting fun into the rather dull business of demonstrating the vehicles' selling points. Apparently this sort of thing is a great draw on the Continent and USA.
If the chimps performed with their usual enthusiasm I fancy some piecework rates are in jeopardy.
. . . at the Castle Talking of elephants, I've been doing a bit of field study at that well-known South London site, the Elephant and Castle. Concern about vehicles overturning—a hot topic just now—set me wondering about several overturning accidents I'd seen at the E. and C., so I wrote to the GLC for statistics. They tell me there were 16 cases of loadshedding (including, I assume, overturning) at the E. and C. roundabout between January 1966 and May 1969—which resulted in 13 prosecutions and one caution! The other two happened in "extenuating circumstances"— very windy weather.
* Cambered
The letter from the GLC traffic commissioner's department raises some interesting points affecting this overturning business, and I quote: "The camber of the road presents problems on any roundabout. At certain points the camber for left-turning traffic meets the superelevation for the right-turning traffic and at those points a vehicle may have to change from one camber to the other. At such a point, excessive speed or insecure loads, or a combination of both, can make the vehicle subject to horizontal forces. An experienced commercial vehicle driver should, however, be aware that thissituation can arise. You will perhaps appreciate that it is impracticable to design any road system without a camber for drainage and superelevation for centrifugal forces."
And it goes on to say that the E. and C. load-shedding record "does not reflect on the design of the system but rather indicates a deficiency in load techniques or bad driving".
You have been warned.